


Hell's Other Bitch

by huntressofdreams



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Author apologizes for short chapters, Extremely short chapters, Gen, Short Chapters, Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-12
Updated: 2014-05-20
Packaged: 2018-01-08 12:52:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 26
Words: 23,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1132872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/huntressofdreams/pseuds/huntressofdreams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Liz Singer is taken from her apartment by low-end demons working for a high-end boss. They torture her for countless hours, days even. The day after Crowley himself shows up for the show, Sam and Dean come to her rescue. When they find out why Crowley wanted her in his possession in the first place, Dean thinks they should leave her to rot. Sam finds a soft spot for the broken girl and disagrees. Liz doesn't like either of them, but seems to know a lot about them. And not just them, but demons, also. A lot more than she should.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Taken

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for the shortness! Some chapters were hard to write but I swear not all the chapters are as short as this one and actually most aren't so please don't let that put you off.

                I rolled over in bed, still half asleep. I didn’t want to wake up, but knew sleep was too far away. I groaned into the floor and pulled the thick, unfamiliar jacket closer to my neck.

            Floor? Jacket? Suddenly the events of the night before – or was it the one before that? – came back to me.

            _I stumbled through the kitchen, still hazy from yesterday’s party. I threw open the fridge door and reached around. My hand grasped a bottle, but before I could put it back, I realized it was root beer. I popped the top off and chugged. A knock reverberated through the room. I was halfway to the door when I realized the knock wasn’t a knock. The door busted open and three armed and uniformed men ran into my apartment. What their uniforms were for, though, I couldn’t tell you. Unprepared and caught off guard, and in my pj’s, I reacted slowly. By the time I had managed to arm myself with a broken bottle, one of them had already drugged me. I managed to cut his neck with the glass before I fell into a slumber. I hoped it was a deep cut._

            I stood to get my bearings. My feet slipped around. God, what was in that drug? Shouldn’t the effects be gone by now? I took another step and wobbled a bit more. It wasn’t until a horn honked six steps later that I realized I was in a car. An eighteen-wheeler, I guess. There was a small grate in what I assumed was the end connected to the truck. Not a lot of light, but enough to see that the room was empty except for me and that jacket that one of my kidnappers had been kind enough to leave. I contemplated screaming as loud as I could, but figured that wouldn’t do much good on an interstate going 60 miles per hour. I concentrated, focusing my thoughts on one specific thing. This is a lot harder than it sounds, especially being a 28-year-old girl trapped in a truck after just being kidnapped and drugged.

            I gave up on my “focus” plan and sat down in a corner. I didn’t have a clue what road we were on, or even what state we were in, but wherever it was, they needed to work on their streets more. My tailbone was aching from bumping up and down.

            Hours passed. Probably even days. I lost track. I drifted in and out of consciousness too many times to count. I walked around. I talked to myself. I complained to the air about my hunger. The only good thing I could think of was that my hangover was gone.

            We drove for so long that I truly lost hold of whatever sanity I had left. I screamed at the wind, begging it to end my misery. I ran through a list of good things that had happened to me in my life. It was such a short list. Then I ran through the bad things, with this at the top of the list. The difference in sizes between the two scared me.

            When I lost it, when my grapefruit went crazy, there was someone I couldn’t stop thinking about. Someone who I had needed to apologize to for the longest time, but would never get the chance. I missed him terribly, wanted him back. But I had left him without thinking, and now he was gone. I supposed it didn’t matter much that he was, since I figured I would be too, soon. Oh, how I wish I had been right.

            When I had left the self-hate stage, and the anger stage, behind, and was in the “everything is funny” stage, the truck stopped. I had barely noticed it, but I certainly noticed when voices sounded outside.

            “You’re sure?” someone said. I think they had a Scottish accent. I don’t know why I found his accent so hilarious.

            “Of course I’m sure!” another man exclaimed. That made me laugh even harder. “Would I bring you the wrong girl?”

            That stopped my giggle fit. They were talking about me. Why I was here. I crawled on my hands and knees, getting closer to the door.

            The Scottish man was talking. He was saying something about killing. And a girl. Me, probably. I started mentally freaking out. But I didn’t show it, even though I was alone.

            “Take ‘er inside. And save the best for me.” I couldn’t imagine what he was talking about. Which probably was a good thing, because I wouldn’t have time to. As the sound of footsteps faded, I noticed a whiteish gas snaking its way to me from the other end of the truck. I sucked in a breath to scream, then realized it would probably be smarter to hold it. So I did. Luckily, I had really strong lungs that I had been training with long runs every day. I was a little occupied to count, but I think I probably lasted about two and a half minutes before I took a breath . . . and collapsed immediately into unconsciousness.


	2. Tortured

            I awoke to a searing pain in my arm and found myself strapped to a table. Memories slowly flooded back, starting with the truck. Then the break in. Then . . . Oh, God. This wasn’t the first time I had woken on this table.

            “Hey, look at that,” someone said. Someone in a white apron with coal eyes. “I thought the soldering iron would do the trick.” It was then that I noticed the thin piece of metal in his hand. He set it down on a tray filled with many weapons - rows of knives, bullets, brass knuckles, and many more I couldn’t see – plus things that couldn’t be counted as weapons, but from this day forward would be to me. The dentists’ tools stood out the most, especially since they were a favorite of my torturer.

            “You’re in for a treat today, Liz,” he was saying. When he continued talking, I blocked him out and focused on the pain in my arm. I didn’t turn my head to look at it, but from the feeling I could tell it would heal neatly. I focused on the rest of my body. The pain wasn’t as bad today as it had been yesterday, but it could certainly be better. No missing limbs or ligaments, though. That was a definite plus.

            Satisfied that my body was not in the worst condition possible, I tuned back into the man with the black eyes. “. . . and he’s on his way now,” he finished. My torturer turned away from me and walked towards the door. He had only taken a few steps, though, when it flung open.

            “Hello, Liz,” a man said with a Scottish accent. Scottish. This was the man that was in charge, the one from outside the truck.

            He was primly dressed in a black suit, with a black shirt and black tie. He was starting to bald on the edges, and had a twinkle in his eye. But it wasn’t a “Santa Claus” twinkle. It was more of a  . . . “I kill for fun” twinkle. I was already scared just looking at him.

            Then he smiled.                                        

            I think I blacked out.

            When I woke again, I was facedown. I think it was the same table. It smelled the same, full of metallic and blood and a bit of scotch. I tried to remember what woke me. It was . . . something . . . bright. Something incredibly bright and blinding, something I couldn’t see. Couldn’t see, but felt.

            Pain.

            The pain seared my skin. But this pain was different. I couldn’t tell why.

            Then it was back.

            A burning laceration seeped into my back. It was slow, but fluid, as if the man holding the knife knew what he was doing and wanted to get the best possible torture from it. I gasped as the blade turned over my skin, creating a design. Then, refusing to reward him with a scream, I held my breath and bit down hard on my lip.

            I had been in pain many times before, broken many bones, but I don’t think I had ever felt such an incandescent agony before in my life. I silently begged for death, or at the least, more unconsciousness. The blade twisted again, turning, the design near completion. I waited with abated breath.

            When he stopped, when the knife stopped moving, then I finally released my lip. I still refused to make any sound, wouldn’t allow my body to force a scream. Instead I breathed. Panted.

            The knife was still there, carefully poised against my spine. “Well,” the now familiar Scottish accent said. “Thank you, Elizabeth, for being such a good sport.” He moved the knife off my back, and I heard footsteps. I willed them to move faster, but they seemed to slow.

            At one point, something – I think the knife – clattered to the ground, but I barely heard it. I just wanted those footsteps to move faster. So much faster.

            When he finally reached the door, I listened to it open, ever so slowly, then clang shut. When I was positive the door had closed and my Scottish torturer had left me, I turned my head, squeezed my eyes shut, and opened my mouth as wide as I could. Listening to my own jaw crack, I took in a deep breath.

            A terrible scream rippled and tore its way through my lungs and out my mouth. I screamed for pain, for regret, for loss, for everything I had refused to let myself think about. But mostly for the aching pain.

            I don’t know how long I laid there, doing nothing but scream till I ran out of breath, then stopping only long enough to take one before the cries continued. I don’t know how long I wailed. I just know that when I was done, I was comatose.


	3. Wake

            I drifted in and out of slumber more times than I cared to keep track of. Sleep lasted for hours that felt like minutes. Reality lasted for mere minutes that I barely even noticed. The only things I really noticed in my waking time was that I was no long on my front, and that the pain was still there. Much fainter, as if it had been months, not hours, but it was still present.

            One time when I drifted awake, there was loud, crashing noises, and grunting, as if someone was fighting. I didn’t stay awake long enough to find out who.

            The next time I woke, something was different. I couldn’t figure out what until I felt a rhythmic shifting. Then I realized I was no longer on the table, but in someone’s arms. I wanted to open my eyes, to see my holder, but decided if he was here to kill me, pretending I was still asleep would be best. I listened to the steady foot falls. There were two people, probably male, judging by the weight of the steps.

            “Sammy, get the door,” the one holding me said. “God, is she ever going to wake up?”

            “Be patient, Dean,” the other one – Sammy – said before a door swung open. “Who knows how long she’s been here.” The walking continued, and I was carried through the door. I listened for it to close, but there wasn’t a clang. Whoever they were, they were sneaking around. They weren’t supposed to be here. “And judging by those scars, she’s been tortured for too long to expect her to wake up soon.”

            Scars? I didn’t have any scars. And I hadn’t been here long enough for any of the cuts to heal. Unable to resist it any longer, I opened my eyes and looked down at myself.

            My arms were covered in thin white strips, scarring covering them and most of my bare skin. Including my stomach. My shirt was gone. All I wore was a black lace bra and yoga pants that were bloodier than anything else. Seeing the scars, I realized – I didn’t feel any more agony. I wasn’t in pain. I stared almost accusingly at the scars.

            “Good, you’re awake,” the boy holding me said. What was his name again? Dean. “Can you walk?”

            I nodded, still looking at my skin. “I think so.” He set me down carefully. I transferred my gaze from my body to the floor, getting my bearings. I took a few steps in bare feet to be sure. When I was positive I could walk, I looked up at my saviors. Dean, the one who had carried me, was the tall, dark, and handsome type. His short hair was almost spiked, and his green eyes never left my face. There was something familiar about him, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

            I looked toward Sammy, a moose of a man. He was tall enough to hit his head on the ceiling, and I was sure he probably had. His hair was long, brown, and pushed behind his ears. His eyes, unlike his friend’s, were a light brown, but seemed to keep changing from light to dark. He smiled at me, as if he knew me, or at least my story. I didn’t like that. No one knew me, not any more. Not since . . .

            I frowned at Sammy and turned on my heel. “Ah!”

            I was on my butt before I registered the pain. “Whoa, careful there,” Dean said, picking me up off the ground and swinging my arm over his shoulders. He held me up by my hip and we started walking.

            When we were down the hallway a little ways, I felt steady enough to walk on my own. I pulled my arm away and pushed his off me. “Are you sure?” he asked, holding his arms out towards me in case I fell again.

            “I’m sure.” I still couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something familiar about him, something I didn’t like. I shook it as best I could and straightened my shoulders. I turned again and started walking with what I hoped looked like dignity.

            “What’s your name?” the moose one asked me. Without stopping or turning around I replied, “Liz.”

            “That’s a nice name,” Dean told me. He smiled, trying to keep me calm. I was calm, even if he kind of freaked me out.

            “I’m Sam Winchester,” Sammy said. “This is my brother, Dean.”

            That stopped me cold in my tracks. “Hey, what’s wrong?” Sam reached over and touched my shoulder. I shrugged it off and quickly backed away from them.

            “Liz, what is it?” I turned to face Dean. Now I know why he looked familiar. He took a stepped towards me. I pointed a finger at him and shook it. “You . . . Stay away from me!”

            “Hey, Liz, what’s wrong?” This time it was Sam walking towards me. I turned and ran.


	4. Everything

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I lied. I didn't realize how short the chapters would be. But the length of the story makes up for it. (Promise)

_Third Person POV – Sam and Dean_

            “What the hell?” Dean wondered, turning to Sam.

            His brother shrugged, still staring after Liz. “I don’t know.”

            “I do,” said a familiar voice behind them. Both boys turned around, unsurprised but a little annoyed.

            “Crowley,” Sam greeted, but it was more accusing than welcoming.

            “What do you mean?” Dean demanded. “What do you know?”

            “Well, for starters, tiger, I know why Liz is oh so terrified of you and your brother.” He sauntered toward the two, a gaudy smile on his lips.

            Dean shrugged at him, pulling out his gun as a precaution. “You care to share?”

            “Not at all.” The smile fell, replaced by a knowing, but not telling, look. “But I will tell you why I wanted a new toy.” Sam’s stance shifted, annoyed and confused, and definitely not liking Crowley referring to Liz as a “toy.”

            “Okay,” Dean said, waving his gun. “Start talking.”

            “Not with you waving a gun in my face.” Dean hesitated, but with a sigh, put it away. “Thank you. Now then.” He waved his hand, and a nearby door busted open and three chairs flew out. No one sat. “Alright. What do you want to know?”

            “Well, for starters, “ Sam told him, anger in his voice, “You can tell us why you kidnapped and tortured an innocent girl!”

            “Kidnapped? Yes. Tortured, definitely. But innocent? Far from it.” Crowley shifted his weight. It was only just starting, but he had already tired of this conversation.  

            “Get to the point, Crowley,” Dean exclaimed.

            “She belongs to us,” he said. “Well, to me, to be specific.”

            “To you?” Sam asked.

            “King o’ Hell, remember?” He sighed and rolled his neck. “Look, can we hurry this up? Places to be, people to kill, et cetera, et cetera.”

            “Hold up just a sec,” Dean told him, holding out a hand. “Why does she belong to Demons, huh? What makes her so special?”

            “Everything,” Crowley said vaguely, and within seconds, he had disappeared.

            “Huh,” Sam remarked.

            “Well, that was helpful.” Dean looked over her shoulder. “We should probably go after her,” he continued, and they started walking.

            They walked in silence for a few minutes, but it wasn’t long before Sam started spouting questions. Why does the King of Hell want Liz? Why did he say she belongs to him? What did he mean by everything? Everything makes her special? How long has Liz been here? Why was she so afraid of him and his brother? The questions kept rolling until he was out of breath, but Dean couldn’t answer any of them.


	5. Possess

            It wasn’t until I stopped running that I realized one of the boys had given me their jacket while I was out. A good thing, too, because I was still only wearing a bra under that jacket. If he wanted it back, though, he wasn’t going to get it. Now that I had figured out why they looked so familiar, there was no way I was going to risk going back to them I didn’t have a death wish.

            I started wandering, unsure where I was going or where I was supposed to go. I didn’t know where any exits were, I realized. I tried door after door, but none of them led outside. Most of the doors opened to storage rooms.

            “Liz!” I heard Sam calling. He was closer than I expected him to be. I started running again.

            I ran until I reached a door that seemed familiar. I threw it open and in seconds had run inside and locked the door. I heard footsteps run up. The boys ran past the door and then slowed.

            “Dammit!” Dean yelled. “Where is she?!”

            “Calm down,” Sam told him. “She can’t have gone far.”

            “But what if she’s a demon, Sam?” I sucked in a breath. How would they know about . . .

            Dean was still talking. “I mean, what Crowley said . . . I don’t know, man. Are you sure she’s worth saving?” Crowley? They knew the King of Hell?

            “Of _course_ she’s worth saving, Dean!” Sam complained. His voice was growing fainter, and the footsteps were moving away. “You though I was worth saving when I was hyped up on demon blood!”

            “But that’s different!”

            “How, Dean?” Sam asked. They were still close, but kept going. “Tell me, how is it different?”

            “Because,” Dean exclaimed, then stopped. He trailed off. It was a while before he continued with, “Because you’re my brother!”

            Deciding I was done listening, I backed up in the room I was in. I should’ve turned around first, because I immediately ran into a table. Things started clattering. Metal instruments fell to the ground. I twisted and tried grabbing at things, trying to keep it quiet. Footsteps were already getting louder, heading towards me.

            When I got the table to steady, I took a good look around, trying to pick something out that I could arm myself with. The room was very white and metallic, but splattered with blood. My blood. This was the same room I had been tortured in.

            I started to freak out. I was hyperventilating, something that always happened when I was anxious. Something else always happened when I was anxious . . . I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself, trying to stop that from happening. The last time that happened when I didn’t want it to, I almost got myself killed.

            I tried to think. What could I remember from this room, something that could be incredibly useful?  Memories flashed between my eyes. One stuck out. Not an image, though, but a sound. A metallic clatter as something hit the floor. I turned around and there it was. The knife that Crowley had used to carve up my back. It was probably about as long as my forearm, and was a silver-y color. What the substance was, I don’t know. What I do know is, as soon as the door started to shake, I picked it up and held it, ready for a fight.

            When the door finally busted open, Sam came in first. It seemed as though he was still trying to convince his brother not to kill me. I don’t know why, though. From my experience, he would be just as likely to kill me. He seemed content on talking though, on helping me out, because unlike his brother, he hadn’t drawn a gun, or any other sort of weapon.

            When he saw my weapon, though, he stopped in his tracks. “Where did you get that?” he asked, sounding nervous.

            I didn’t dignify him with an answer and just tightened my grip.

            “How do you know Crowley?” Dean demanded, trying a different tactic than Sam.

            I shook my head. “I don’t.”

            “Sure you do!” Dean waved his gun, trying to emphasize himself. “Why else would Crowley say you belong to him?!” He was more than just angry now, he was annoyed. At me, at Crowley, and probably at his brother for not letting him kill me.

            I ran up to him and slammed him against the wall, forcing the gun from his hand with the blow. I held the knife against his throat and pushed just hard enough to get a bead of blood to drip down his neck. “Listen very carefully,” I told him. I pushed my face close to his. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Sam draw his gun. He aimed carefully at my head, but hesitated. “I. Do. Not. Belong. To. Anyone. Not Crowley, not Hell, not Lucifer, not any damn hunter or demon in the entire universe. You got that? I am NOT anyone’s _possession._ ” I backed up, releasing him. Reaching out a foot, I pulled his gun closer to me before he could pick it up and start shooting.

            He kept his eyes on his gun, but said to me, “Then how come Crowley thinks you do?”

            “Cause he’s an ass.” I leaned over, still keeping an eye on Dean, and picked up his gun. I tucked it into the pocket of the jacket. Which reminded me. “Thanks, by the way,” I said to Dean, since Sam had a jacket and Dean didn’t.

            “Don’t mention it.” Now that I was holding his gun, his view had moved to the knife in my hand. “Seriously, though, how did you get that?”

            I transferred my own gaze to Sam. He had lowered the gun, but still had it out. His stance, on the other hand, showed that he wasn’t going to be fighting anytime soon. Or at least, he didn’t expect to. “It was on the floor.” And that wasn’t a lie.

            “Yeah, right,” Dean mumbled, taking a step forward. I backed up accordingly. My heart rate quickened, my pulse blasting in my ears. I squeezed my eyes shut and put two hands on the blade’s  handle.

            “Please don’t,” I told him. I took a deep breath, trying to slow my heart. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

            “And yet, I don’t believe you.” He took another step forward. Sam took a step closer to his brother and held out an arm, as if getting ready to hold him back.

            “Why are you so afraid of us?” Sam asked, stalling Dean.

            I scoffed. “Yeah, I’m sure you don’t know.” He shook his head. Dean grimaced. “You don’t? You really don’t know.” I was shocked, and my heartbeat was still going up. I sucked in another breath. “You . . . You really don’t.”

            “No, I don’t,” Sam exclaimed softly. “Could you tell me?”

            “I don’t . . .” I sighed, preparing myself for a long conversation that I would probably find a way to run away from. “Your father tried to kill me, Sam.”


	6. Left

            They both stared at me. That’s all they would do. It felt like years before either of them even moved. I coughed, trying to appease the awkward silence.

            “What?” Dean exclaimed. Then he shook his head, and started over. “I’m sorry . . . What?”

            Sam looked at his brother. When he turned back to me, his eyebrows were raised and his face spelled disbelief. No, not disbelief . . . Not wanting to believe. Oh, that was sweet. He was still trying to protect me. I didn’t know why. I didn’t like it. Why couldn’t he just leave me alone? “Why would our dad try to kill you?” Sam wondered aloud. I just shook my head at him. I didn’t even have to try to read his mind to know that he was a broken soul. Thinking that his dad might have tried to kill the girl he was now trying to protect just kept hurting him.

            “I knew something,” was the best answer I could risk telling them. They had relieved their hands of weapons, but I knew Dean was still itching to shoot something. “Something he didn’t like.”

            “Yeah, and what the hell is that supposed to mean?” Dean said. He was nearly shouting.

            Again, I shook my head. I moved past the boys, keeping a tight grip on the blade I had rescued. I stalked through the open door, but quickly realized I had no idea where to go. I had been unconscious all but one time when I had been navigated through these halls. Not stopping, not hesitating, trying not to show any sort of weakness to the Winchesters, I turned left. Left had served me better than right in my life. Taking a left turn at the dirt crossroad was how I got home. Or, how I used to get home.

            “Why does no one feel like giving me a straight answer today, huh?” Dean started following me. I heard another set of footsteps start and knew Sam was following him. “First Cas, then Crowley . . . Now this bitch doesn’t even know which way to go.”

            It wasn’t until he said that that I realized I had stopped. And, what’s more, I had stopped at an intersection. I sighed, hating that he had compared me to Crowley, and took another left.

            “It’s the other way, sweet cheeks,” Dean called. “Or are you not trying to find a way out of this hell hole?”

            I tried to ignore him, but that idea barely even fit in my head before it left. Instead, I spent a few precious seconds thinking up with a good comeback. “Have you ever been in a maze, Dean?” I wondered. Not waiting for an answer, since I didn’t want one, I continued. “And not just any maze. Like, a real, proper labyrinth. I have. And do you know how to navigate a labyrinth?” Sam started something, a syllable. I think he was probably going to explain, but I kept talking, pushing my mousy hair out of my face. “You keep your hand on a wall. Or you continue to make left hand turns. And so long as this doesn’t lead you in circles, you will always get where you need to go . . .” My voice had started trailing off, and so did my steps. Something was off, but I couldn’t tell what.

            Ignoring the feeling in my gut (which I find is never the best thing to do) I kept walking, making another left, and then another. The boys kept following me, Dean telling me to go right, and Sam asking me questions I refused to answer.

            Seven lefts, four complaints, and sixteen questions later, I found my way to a set of double doors. The doors themselves meant nothing to me, and neither did the drawings on top of them. They meant something to Sam and Dean though, because they each stopped in their tracks, then slowly walked up to the doors. Sam put his hand over the markings and started tracing them. He murmured something about “angel warding.”

            “Guess we are in the right place then,” Dean relented. “Good call, Liz.” He sounded upset just to acknowledge that I had done something right.

            I nodded. After several more moments of Sam and Dean looking over the walls, I groaned loudly. “Oh, for Hell’s sake.” I took a few steps forward and threw the doors open, rubbing some of the paint off in the process. I smeared two symbols, but didn’t care much.

            I went inside, head held high. Sam followed cautiously, but Dean stayed where he was. I expected him to be looking around the room for some sort of trap, but when I turned around to look, he was staring at me.

            Again.

            “Oh, what is it this time?!”

            “You said Hell.” He kept his eyes on me, stepping forward. His gun was drawn and cocked before I could register what he was accusing.

            “Yeah?” I told him. “Lots of people say Hell.”

            He shook his head, walking closer. Sam took a step forward in a way that almost blocked me, but at the same time took him closer to Dean. “Not a lot of people say it the way you said it though.” Dean was awful set on finding an excuse to kill me, and if this was the best he could come up with, he was desperate to have my head on a platter.

            I started to laugh, trying to walk it off. My heart started to pick up the pace. I needed to calm myself, but that was hard to do with two murderers in the same room as you, with one of them wanting to kill you and the other wanting to protect you.

            “And what is that supposed to mean, sweetheart?” I shook my head at him again, trying to show the opposite of the nerve racking I felt inside.

            “You said ‘For Hell’s sake.’” He took another step closer and gave me his best I-know-what-you’re-doing-even-if-you-don’t look. “Most people would say God. Not Hell.” There was a pause of silence. I didn’t break it, and neither did Sam. After a while, Dean did. “Crowley was right,” he said. “You belong here, don’t you? To Hell.”

            This time my heart didn’t just quicken, it blasted through me. Instead of a simple _boom, boom_ heartbeat, I could feel the constant _whoosh_ of blood flowing through every vein, every second. My vision darkened, brightened, reddened, everything. It kept changing. I heard someone say, “I do not belong to Hell, or to anyone.” My eyesight changed twice more before I realized it was me.

            When my vision finally settled on a reddish-purple tint, then my hearing went off. Voices flooded me. Most, I wasn’t sure where from. One stuck out.

            Crowley.

            “Yes you do, sweet.” When the boys turned, then I knew this wasn’t in my head. Not like all the others. I turned, too, to see a neatly-suited man standing to my right.

            “Haven’t you heard?” he continued. “You’re my bitch.”


	7. Truth

            My head was still flooded with words, most of which I couldn’t understand, along with images flashing here and there, random sounds leaking from every corner, and some things I wasn’t sure I cared to find out what they were. But those words quieted the rest. My vision was still a tinted red color, and seemed to get worse hearing that. It echoed around in my brain. _You’re my bitch._ Who actually says that, anyway? Crowley, I guess. Though I have to admit, it did sound kind of cool in a Scottish accent.

            I managed to extract one sound from the river in my head. I think it was Sam. “What do you mean, your bitch?” he was saying. His stance toward Crowley seemed almost accusing. “Last time I checked, she didn’t belong to anyone.”

            “No, not anymore,” Crowley said. “Or did she not tell you about that?”

            “What?” Dean exclaimed. He was still angry at me for my “slip up” over saying Hell, and therefore still had his gun out and about. He turned to me and said, “What is he talking about?”

I shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. This was a subject I tended to avoid. I had never strictly belonged to him, but I might as well have. Ever since I left him, though, I didn’t like to talk about him to anyone. And the Winchesters would not be the first people I would talk to about him after his death, That, I was sure of. More sure than I was of anything else at the moment.

            “Liz,” he said, turning more fully towards me and cocking his gun. As he slowly raised it to point between my eyes, he exclaimed in a quiet, yet powerful voice, “Tell me.”

            I shook my head, more at myself than him. “Dean?” Sammy said softly. He didn’t make any move to stop his brother, as if expecting him to stop of his own accord. Crowley took a careful step forward and spoke to me.

            “Tell your adoptive father I said hello, would ya?” I thought about spitting at his feet, but I had never liked clichés. Especially that one.

            “Your father,” Sam said, almost knowingly. “That’s who you, well, who you belonged to.” Dean hesitated at this, and, excruciatingly slowly, lowered his weapon. “And he’s dead now, isn’t he?”

            I nodded. As a single tear leaked from my eye, my vision abruptly cleared. With the red tinge gone, I looked back at Sam. “A little over a year now, I think . . .” Another tear fell.

            “You think?” Dean mused. When I moved my head to see him, the first thing I noticed was that his hands were empty. The second was his face. He was . . . annoyed?

            “I . . .” I hung my head in shame, the tears coming full force now. For some reason, it was just water. There was no stuffed or runny nose, and my throat was very clear. “I wasn’t there. When it . . . When he died. I didn’t hear about it for weeks afterwards.”

“Oh, my god!” Dean exclaimed. “You didn’t know about your own father’s death for weeks?!”

“Hey, at least I didn’t watch both my parents die! And be the cause of one!” I knew I shouldn’t have said that, but I kept going. “At least I didn’t watch my brother die! Four times! At least I didn’t have to kill my best friend in order to save my brother!” I gasped and slapped a hand over my mouth. I didn’t pull it off in order to apologize or anything like that.

I’d done it again. Every time I get stressed or angry, this happens. And I open my fat mouth and get myself killed! Well, like father like son. Dean even aimed his gun at me like his father, straight at my left eye with an accusatory glare and the words, “What did you say?”

“She said you killed your best friend,” Crowley supplied. I would never have relied on him for anything, but I was at least hoping he would have the decency to keep his mouth shut this one time.

“Yeah, I heard her!” Dean shouted.

“Just tryin’ to help.” In a second, Crowley was gone, disappeared the way I hate that demons do.

I had been keeping most of my attention on Dean, but when I saw movement in the corner of my eye, I turned to see a surprised Sam raise a gun at an equally surprised me. “How did you know about that?” Sam asked me. He was still gentler than his brother. I couldn’t understand it. I had done nothing to deserve his kindness. Why did I get it? I would never understand. “Dean and me were the only ones who knew about that. And Benny, of course, but he’s dead.”

I shook my head again. There were so many conversations I didn’t want to have. Why not add this to the top of the list?

“I have this thing,” I started, “where I know stuff that I’m not supposed to.”

“Yeah, got that,” Dean said. His annoyance grew every second, and I had no way to stop it. “How do you do it?”

I started taking steps backwards. When Dean reached out to grab me, I whispered, “I don’t know.” Then I turned and started running once more. Always running.


	8. Shoot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fucking chapter is so short! Sorry!

_Third Person POV – Sam and Dean_

            “Damn it!” Dean threw his arm down, needing to destroy something. With the only thing in his hand being his gun, he decided against that tactic. “Why does she keep running?!”  
            “Maybe it has something to do with the fact that you keep wanting to shoot her,” his brother sighed. “Or our dad trying to kill her.”

            “Yeah, I mean, what’s up with that?” Dean wondered. He waved his arms with each word, emphasizing nothing. “Why would Dad try to kill her? I mean, come on! Other than her knowing a little more than she should, why would he do that?” He started after Liz, then turned around and started pacing. “I mean, sure, she could’ve learned those things from Crowley or some other demon running their mouth, but that doesn’t explain anything useful!”  
            “Like, why Dad wanted to kill her.”  
            “Exactly!” The elder Winchester threw his arms in frustration, still pacing. He should put his gun away in case it accidently fires, but he’s still itching to shoot something. To calm this need, he aims in no particular direction, just away from Sammy and not at the hallway, and fires. The bullet knocks a bowl off a table, but causes no physical damage. Sam takes no real notice of it, barely acknowledging that the gun went off. Instead, he starts after Liz, but doesn’t get too far before he turns to confront his brother.

            “Why are you so ready to kill her?” Sam demanded.

            “What? I’m not!” Sam just looked at him and waited, but not very patiently. “Okay, so maybe I am. So what?”

            “So what? Dean, if I . . .” He trailed off and turned his head away. When he looks back, frustration mirrors in his eyes. “If I wasn’t your brother, would you have killed me?” Dean started to protest, to make some sort of remark, but Sam continued as if he had never spoken. “When I was hyped up on demon blood? Or, when I started having those visions? Or how ‘bout when I didn’t have my freakin’ soul, Dean? Would you have killed me?”

            “Of course not, Sammy!”

            “What if I wasn’t your brother, Dean? What if you didn’t know me?” Sam paused for a breath and waited for an answer. He didn’t get one. Dean kept rubbing his face, trying to keep from answering, because they both knew the answer.

            “I think we should give her a chance,” Sam offered. “And, yeah, if we find out she’s a bitch from Hell, we shoot her, but not until then. Okay?”

            Dean huffed, but after a long moment’s thought, relented. “Okay. We don’t shoot her.” He put his gun back where it belonged and started down the long hallway. “But no one said I had to like it.”


	9. Problems

            I knew they were following me, but I didn’t care. Eventually I had slowed to a walk, but was still moving. I had to keep moving, like something inside of me was forcing me to. I never tried to fight it, but I wished whatever it was at least had a sense of direction, because finding a way out of this place was starting to seem impossible.

            It was a while longer before I actually heard the footsteps that said someone was behind me. I just ignored them, and kept an even pace. It wasn’t much longer after that when Dean and Sam were in step with me, one on each side. Still I ignored them, but took careful notice to see Dean’s empty hands. I mentally sighed with relief, but didn’t show anything. I’d spent my whole life perfecting my face to be void of emotion when it was necessary, and I was glad that it had finally come in handy.

            Neither brother tried to talk to me, or get me to answer questions, which I was grateful for, but a little confused about. We continued walking, with me leading. When we came to an intersection, I didn’t hesitate before talking a left turn. Dean or Sam occasionally threw open a door, or turned around to make sure we weren’t followed.

            It was about ten or fifteen minutes into us walking when Dean decided he couldn’t handle the silence. “Alright,” he demanded, turning to face me. I stopped a little late and ended up a little too close to him for my comfort, but tried not to show it, and stayed where I was. “What is up with you? Why do you keep running?”

            I didn’t want to answer, but stood my ground. “I find running away from problems is the best response,” I exclaimed as seriously as I could.

            “Yeah, well, that might be nice for you, but I’d like an answer,” he replied with a little more sarcasm than I had, but he was just as serious. He took a step forward, bringing his body close enough that, if I sucked in a breath, I could touch him with my own body. “Why do you keep running?”

            I sighed, looked down, and wrung my hands. When I looked back up, he had taken a step away. His stance showed that he expected an answer. Guess he was wrong on that count. I turned, ducking under his arm, and was a good few feet away before I stopped. I turned again, but this time to face him. “I told you,” I said, taking slow steps backwards. “I like to run from my problems.” With that, I turned and ran. It wasn’t a fast pace, because I wasn’t aiming to get away. I just wanted to prove a point.

            They were following me the second I started running. One of them – Dean – grabbed my arm as we reached a crossroad, and pulled me to the right. Even after we turned, he kept pulling me. I tried to yank away but his grip was too strong, and Sam was right behind me, a hand on my back to guide me along. Moments later, we were in an empty room. Dean threw me ahead of him and bolted the door. His hands kept moving, his fingers twitching, and I wondered why there was no gun in them yet. I looked to Sam, as if expecting to get an explanation from him. Much to my surprise, I did. He was keeping a careful eye on his brother, watching, and I realized he must have asked his brother not to kill me. I still did not get why he wanted me alive so bad. I could ask, or I could . . . No. Not again. That was a bad idea from the start, from the first time I learned about it. I stuck to the first option.

            “Why don’t you want me dead?” I demanded. I started shaking, and I realized I was shivering. But I wasn’t cold. And it couldn’t be fear. I wasn’t afraid. Was I?

            Sam looked confused, but Dean was the one who answered me. “We’ll be asking the questions here, if you don’t mind.” He pulled up a chair and motioned for me to sit. I ignored him and decided to retrieve the knife from where I had stashed it in my waistband. They were both still a little jumpy at the sight of me carrying it. I didn’t know why, but I liked that I could spark some fear in turn. Dean cleared his throat and continued. “Now then, why do you keep running away from us when we’re trying to help you? And don’t say you’re running from your problems, either, ‘cause that doesn’t explain jack.”

            I scoffed at him. “Help? Really? That’s what you call this?” I started to laugh, but decided that wasn’t the best thing to do in a questioning, especially when the interrogator wanted me dead. “When I run into a question I can’t answer, I run the other way.”

            It was Sam’s turn to laugh now. “Yeah,” he exclaimed. “I think we got that much. What we don’t get is why you can’t answer it. Like, how you know things you shouldn’t.”

            “I’m not getting out of this one, am I?” When Dean shook his head, I sighed and decided taking that seat would be a good idea. I didn’t want to be standing up when I went through my life story.

            “Sit down, boys,” I told them. “This might take a while.”


	10. Life

            “So,” I started. I had put the knife down and was now busying my hands by running them through my hair. I was about to share my life with the sons of my would-be murderer. Not exactly my life’s dream, but if it would keep Dean from waving a gun at me every time I said something he didn’t like, I guess I would go through with it.

            “So?” Dean repeated, and I realized I had been sitting there thinking for a bit too long.

            I put my head back and stared at the ceiling as I readied my story. “Starting at the beginning . . .” I decided. I sat back up and looked him square in the eyes. “When I was six months old, both my parents died in a fire. My dad carried me out, gave me to a neighbor, then ran back inside for my mom. Neither of them came back out.

            “I was dropped into the system, spent a good deal of my childhood in it. When I was seven, I started running away from my foster homes. I always got dropped back in, though. When I was twelve . . . When I was twelve, I was walking to the grocery store, and got attacked.” I rubbed the side of my neck, where scars still resided. “I was too young, too naïve at the time, but what attacked me was a vampire. I kicked it in the nuts, which was fucking useless, as I’m sure you know.” Dean let out a breath of a laugh, but Sam just stared intently, waiting for me to continue.

            “Some guy came out of nowhere, chopped the bastard’s head off, and asked me if I was alright. Of course, I was twelve, and wasn’t in a good mood to start with, but after that, I pretty much tried to take his own head off. I . . . said some stuff I shouldn’t have, and he swung at me. Lucky for me, he didn’t use the hand with the machete.

            “He called up some guy, and took me to his house.”

            “Wait a minute,” Dean interrupted. “Was this guy our dad?”

            “Yeah,” I told him. “Funny, he saved my life and then tried to end it. Just one more way you’re like him . . . Interrupt me again and I’ll shoot you.” When I was content he wouldn’t be talking anytime soon, I continued. “So, your dad took me to his buddy’s place, did a little explaining, then tried to shoot me. I say tried because his friend basically refused to let him kill an, as far as he knew, innocent little girl. When he got John to leave, I told him about my not having family. He understood, and took me in.

            “I stayed with him for six years, but on my eighteenth birthday, I got out of there.” I stopped for a breath. I knew this next part was going to be hard to say, and I really didn’t want to say it. I started to. Got out a couple syllables, but I decided some things were better left alone.

            “I learned the way of hunter’s, learned to shoot a gun, even though I probably couldn’t tell a Colt from a Winchester. Still can’t. I was always better with a blade, anyway. I went to high school, too,” I said. The boys seemed a little surprised by this. “I only went on jobs when he decided they weren’t too messy, wouldn’t get me killed, and enrolled me at a local high school. Of course, being a teenager, I didn’t like that idea, so I started looking for jobs in nearby towns.” I dipped my head down. I didn’t like looking Dean dead in the eye. His eye color might be a whole different shade than his father, but the rest of his face reminded me way too much of John.

            “I started finding demon signs in places near me. At first I didn’t think anything of it. I just figured, I was trying to find them, so of course I might see things that weren’t really there. But, after a while, I noticed that the demon signs were perfectly centered around my town. When I was sixteen, I started seeing them. Demons. They would show up at my school, in the teachers, the janitors, the popular kids. They seemed to follow me around. And it kept getting worse. Then, one day, out of the blue, one of them talked to me. That was the first and last time one of the demon ever said anything to me.” I stopped. I knew they were going to ask, what did it say? But I didn’t want to have to answer that.

            It had probably been a good minute before one of them said anything. It was Sam. “What did the demon say, Liz?” I looked up at him. His eyes were softer than his brother’s, and his face was almost nothing like his father’s. I liked that.

            “’We are here,’” I quoted from a memory. “’And we will always be here. You can’t run. You can’t hide. You belong to us.”

            A sharp noise pierced the air. I looked to Dean, whose lips were still pursed from the whistle. “Well, that explains why you’re such a bitch about being someone’s belonging.” When I made a face at him, he just chuckled. I wanted to pick up the blade and slash his throat more than I’d probably ever wanted anything, but I wasn’t a cold-blooded killer. And this man wouldn’t make me one.

            “Please,” Sam consented. “Continue.”

            With a sigh, I did. “I decided that day that I couldn’t stay there. I would put everyone I cared about in danger. So I started packing. I decided to wait until I was eighteen, but the second I was, I hit the road. I left a number for him to call me on, but never an address. Hell, I never had one long enough to get mail anyway.” Again, I hung my head. “About eight years after I left, I called. The line was disconnected. I was worried, but I didn’t want to push my luck. So I waited. A couple months later, I called again, this time from a new state. The line was still disconnected. That wasn’t like him, so I packed a bag and went home. When I got there . . . The house was burnt to the ground. There was barely anything left of the structure.

            “I went to the sheriff, who’d always been close, since she was always nice about me and my . . . rebellious streak, as she put it. Turns out, no one had been in the house when it went up, but she didn’t have a new address to give me. I stuck around for a few days, to try to find out where he went, but I lost him. I never talked to him again. I had to learn through the hunter grapevine a year later that he had died. Head shot.” I tried to laugh, but it was covered by tears I didn’t even know were there. “Not exactly the way I expected him to go. I would’ve thought something along the lines of, I don’t know, eaten or whatever. Or maybe blown up by his own stupidity.” I laughed again, but it was a sad, blubbery sound.

            We sat there for a while, longer than I could think was possible to sit in one spot without moving, barely breathing. It felt like years until someone broke the silence. I wish no one had done so. My life would have been a lot simpler, and so would the explanation.

            “See, what I don’t get,” Dean said, standing up, “is what you could possibly say to our dad that would make him want to kill you. Because I know my dad. And he wouldn’t even think about killing a twelve-year-old girl without a damn good reason. So do you want to give me one?”

            “I said . . .” I trailed off. Then I stood, too, picking up the silvery knife in the process. I knew I would want to be armed for this.

            “I said, ‘Mary’s death was not your fault, but if your boys die, that will be.’”


	11. Hurt

            Dean slammed into me so fast and so hard that my chair behind me tipped over, and I fell with it. He didn’t help me up, though, instead opting to slam his knee hard into my chest. Again I was reminded that, underneath his jacket, all I wore was a bra. In the fall, my hand had forced itself open, knocking the knife out. I grasped for it, but Dean slammed a hand on my arm. His other hand was busy aiming his gun at my face.

            “The _hell_ did you say?!” he shouted. Sam stood behind him, but, unlike before, seemed wary about helping me. His own weapon was drawn, but I think more out of protection for him and his brother than anger. Dean on the other hand . . .

            “What did you say!” he shouted again. I didn’t supply an answer, because I knew he wasn’t searching for one. He had been wanting to shoot me since I woke up in his arms, and now he had a good reason to. I didn’t bother to find a way to destroy that.

            When I continued staring at him, thinking mostly about my head and hoping the cement floor wouldn’t give me a concussion, he dropped his gun. I turned my head to face it, and traced the engravings with my eyes. It was probably his father’s before him, I would bet, because I found it unlikely that someone like Dean would tote around a specially designed weapon, when he could have any other gun in the world.

            My head was slammed against the cement again. I felt my skin split over my cheekbone, heard my jaw snap at the contact, and watched the floor come up to meet me. By the time I registered what had happened, the floor was rising again. When I turned back, I barely had enough time to spit some blood out of my mouth before his fist came down again, connected with my teeth.

            Dean continued pounding out his fury on my face, but I didn’t mind too much. I had expected it. With no time to glance around between punches anyway, I closed my eyes. I measured time through skin connecting with skin. _One, two, three . . . four._ The punches were consistent, but uneven.

            _Fifteen, sixteen . . . seventeen, eighteen, nineteen . . . twenty._

            “Dean,” I finally heard someone say. Two more punches passed before I registered Sammy. I think he was pulling his brother off me. “Dean!” A weight was lifted as the man in question was suddenly thrown off of my body. “That’s enough.”

            After long moments of silence, I peeled my eyes open. Sam was concernedly, yet harshly, looking at his brother, who was still staring at me as if I was the most infuriating being on the planet. Which, by his standards, I probably was.

            I sat up slowly, afraid he would start hitting me again if I made any sudden movements. Once I was up, I kept leaning, until I was almost doubled over. I took a big swig of saliva and spat out all the blood I could muster. It splattered the floor, and a little bit of Dean’s shoes, but he paid no attention. When I finally got up the courage, I looked up at him.

            I was trying so hard to keep my heart rate in check. This is so much harder than it sounds, especially when your entire face ached in pain. I managed to get it down, but not by much. I didn’t want to freak out. Freaking out had never been my strong suit, and usually ended up with me either in an office, or with an ice pack.

            Eventually, I decided I was okay, and spoke. “Can you blame a girl?” I started. I figured sarcasm was my best defense for now. “I’d just gotten attacked by a vampire.” I flung my hair back, emphasizing my neck. “And besides, a psychic’s gotta have a little fun, don’t’cha think?”


	12. Disbelief

            I wasn’t sure which I expected more; another swift punch to the face, or disbelief. I got neither.

            Dean continued staring at me with anger. He continued to be armed, a fact that struck me as annoying as hell. His younger sibling did share the look of disbelief I’d been hoping for, though. Sam just looked at me as if he wasn’t sure what he was seeing. I just hoped he didn’t change his mind about me and join his brother in his aimed-attempts at my death.

            When I revealed my long kept secret, which no other living person (probably) knew about, I had been thinking, _hey, maybe this will keep me from getting my ass sent to Hell and back._ I just hoped I wasn’t wrong about that rash decision. Working on impulse had never done me much good.

            One good thing came out of this, luckily. Crowley seemed to have decided that he would be doing no one much good by appearing right now. Then again, not doing anyone any good seemed to be his specialty . . . But he definitely hadn’t shown up.

            It took four long minutes before I realized neither boy would break the silence. Rolling my neck backwards, I spoke. “God, that’s sure a way to quiet a room.” I smiled half-heartedly at them. Still no reaction. “Sorry to be a crowd killer.”

            “Oh, no, not a problem,” Dean answered. I didn’t have to be psychic to know that he was using my previous idea at sarcasm as a defense. It wasn’t working for me, but it seemed to keep him pulled together. “Tell me, what am I thinking right now?” He took a few slow steps toward me and tilted his head, as if that might help me see inside it.

            I rolled my eyes and shifted my weight so that I was leaning away from him. “Doesn’t work like that, Winchester. There isn’t a switch. Or at least, not one that I’ve been able to find.” I looked towards the door, wondering how far I’d get if I made a break for it. Not very, I decided. “But if I had to take a guess, you’re wondering just how many pits there are in the world that you could throw me into. Or perhaps where you could find a body bag my size.”

            He laughed. “Yeah, that’s real cute.”

            “Are you really?” Sam asked, interrupting our tirade. “Psychic, I mean.”

            I looked at him. He still had those sad, broken eyes, but his face was a mask, like he didn’t want anyone to know just how broken he really was. I nodded. “Yeah. I really am.”

            “Oh, come on, Sam!” Dean put his gun in his waistband and turned to his brother. “You don’t really believe this shit, do you?!”

            Sammy looked towards me. He seemed upset that his brother was yelling about me, in front of me. He seemed upset about a lot of things Dean did.

            Dean noticed his glance and grabbed Sam, pulling him away from me and towards the door. They started speaking in hushed tones. I didn’t try to, but I heard every word they said.

            “What would Crowley even want with a psychic, man?” Dean was saying.

            “I don’t know.” Sam glanced at me again. “But I think don’t think she’s lying.”

            “Well, why wouldn’t she be?”

            Sam sighed at his brother. “She’s got no reason to. And we’ve met psychics before.” The older Winchester seemed to lose interest in the conversation and turned away. “Dean, Pamela? Remember her?”

            “Of _course_ I remember her!”

            “Or what about Missouri, back in Kansas?” he continued. It took me a second to figure out that Missouri was probably someone’s name. Whoever he or she was, I was grateful to them, because that seemed to convince Dean.

            “Fine, okay!” He turned back to his brother. “Maybe she is psychic. But she had _no right_ to say those things. Not to Dad, not to anyone!”

            “Dean, she was twelve!”

            “So?”

            Sam huffed in exhaustion. “So, she didn’t know any better. I’m sure you did stupid stuff, too, when you were twelve!”

            Before Dean could doubtlessly exclaim that he had done no such thing, I spoke up. “Hello? Yeah, you two.” They turned to me. “Y’know, I can hear every word you’re saying.” Sam had a look on his face that said it had only just dawned on him that I was still in the room. Dean gave me a death glare and yanked open the door. Grabbing his little brother by the elbow, he led Sam into the hall. He turned to give me one last look that clearly said _sit, stay_ before slamming the door behind him.


	13. Trust

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fucking Christ! I hate short chapters! (I know, I know, all my chapters are short. But when they're this short, I get pissed at myself)

_Third Person POV – Sam and Dean_

            “What?” Sam asked.

            “What do you mean, what?” Dean started pacing, his fingers twitching by his side. “Sam, we can’t trust her.”

            “We barely know her.”

            “Exactly!” Dean turned about-face and looked his brother in the eyes. “We don’t know anything about her, and now we find out she’s psychic? How are we supposed to trust her? Tell me, Sam ‘cause I ain’t got a clue!”

            “Dean, we know everything about her.” Sam grabbed Dean’s arm, trying to calm him down. “She just told us her whole life story. We probably know more about her than she’s ever told anyone.”

            “Or,” Dean countered, “all that could’ve been a ploy to get us to trust her, and she could be working with Crowley!”

            “I really doubt that.”

            “Why? Because he tortured her?” Dean started pacing again. He pulled out his gun and shifted it around in his hands for comfort. “Who says Crowley wouldn’t torture her if they were on the same side? He could’ve just done that for show.”

            Sam hesitated at this. Maybe his brother had a point. But he could still remember a time when he was that broken. All he had needed was someone to believe in, and someone to believe in him. Sam wanted to be that person for Liz, even if his brother didn’t want him to be.

            “Okay,” he finally relented. “We’ll be careful. But she hasn’t proven any reason not to be saved. So we should still help her.”

            Dean stood, staring ahead of him for a long moment. Sam wasn’t sure how much time passed. A few minutes? Eventually, he turned around. “Alright,” he said, and flung the door back open.


	14. Pain

            They walked in to find me primly seated on the folding chair Dean had previously knocked over. My head was running wild trying to find a way out, I was scared as hell, and my heart seemed to be beating out of my chest. But I sat there as if I didn’t have a care in the world, and had simply been waiting for their return.

            “Alright, Liz,” Dean began. Well, that didn’t sound the slightest bit ominous. “Enough chick-flick moments. We need to talk, for real.”

            I didn’t embellish an answer, or a return question, mainly because I didn’t want to talk. I knew what he meant, though. Time for the real interrogation.

            The boys walked closer. Sam opted to sit down, but Dean had gone back to pacing in front of and around me. It wasn’t long before someone spoke.

            “Liz, who was the hunter that adopted you?” Sam wondered. The way he said it made me think he had been wondering this since I shared my story.

            I kept my mouth shut. I wasn’t giving any more information that wasn’t necessary. And this information? One I would like to keep as good a secret as possible.

            Which means this would be the perfect time for someone who didn’t like me to start spilling it – and all my other secrets.

            “I’m surprised you haven’t figured that little detail out yet,” Crowley told the sasquatch.

            “What do you mean?” Dean stopped seeming surprised every time Crowley popped up. I myself was used to demons popping up at random times in my life that seemed to work worst for me, even if the King of Hell himself wasn’t a frequent visitor.

            Crowley ignored his question and sauntered up to me. “You’re nothing like him, you know.” That stung. That definitely hurt me, hearing I was nothing like the man who raised me, the only person who’d ever felt like family. But that was the point, right? Crowley was just trying to upset me. Still . . .

            He turned to Sam and Dean, but something told me his main attention was still on me. “You boys are really that stupid,” he told them. It didn’t seem like a statement or a question, just an observation. He continued staring at them for a while, as if waiting for some sort of statement. When he didn’t get one, he turned back around to face me. He raised a gun – a glock, I think – and cocked it. “Say hello to Bobby for me,” he exclaimed, his Scottish accent thick. “Oh, that’s right. You won’t be joining him upstairs.”

            I sucked in a breath. Something inside me wanted me to close my eyes, but I knew there was no way I would face my death that way.

            My death . . .

            I’m twenty-eight. I don’t want to die. Not today, at least.

            I quickly took a guess at the measurement between me and Crowley. Deciding it was far enough and I was flexible enough, I kicked my leg up. Catching him off guard, I managed to disarm Crowley, throwing the gun up in the air. The gun went off, but the bullet nailed itself harmlessly into a wall behind me. Looking at his eyes, I could see a reaction forming, but I didn’t want to give him enough time for that to happen. I brought my fist up and connected it with his chin. Other than the momentary head snap, he showed no sign that I had even hit him. I knew hurting a demon with nothing more than your own body was damn near impossible, but Hell if I wasn’t going to try.

            Before he could take a moment to understand the full concept of what I was doing, I spun around and gave him a – if I do say so myself – perfectly executed roundhouse kick to the face. Then I swung in with a left hook to the exact same spot.

            He just stood there, waiting for me to be done pounding his head – I don’t know what satisfaction I got from hitting his face, but there was certainly some.

            When I was almost too tired to continue trying to beat him to a pulp, and he just looked as pristine as ever, I tried my last resort. I knew the chances of this actually working on a demon – and not just any demon – were less than slim, but I just couldn’t help it. I wanted him deader than dead, as dead as I could possibly get him, and then put a few more bullets in his brain.

            With Crowley still standing there, taking the beating like nothing could be more perfect, I took a step back. Then one more. Punching him had brought me closer to his vessel than I wanted to be. I stared at him, trying to give the illusion that I had given up. As he started to pull his hands out of his pockets, I stepped forward with my left foot. Before anyone, even me, was entirely sure what was going on, I brought my right foot up with a snap. I actually felt my knee pop and crack as I straightened it as hard and fast as I could. When my foot connected, I could feel something bend, and I think even break. My leg snapped down faster than it had gone up, and the damage was done.

            But there was no damage. I had hit Crowley as hard as was physically possible, and he didn’t even wince. His vessel would feel it, and would probably be catatonic afterwards, but Crowley himself? My foot connecting hard against his crotch seemed as ineffective to him as sunshine on a lake.

            “Ow!” someone exclaimed. I hadn’t even remembered until that moment that Sam and Dean were still in the room. I brought my attention back to them to see both of them in looks of pain – Sam with a fist to his mouth, Dean with a hand to his crotch – as if they had been the ones to be hit. I remembered hearing somewhere about guys having sentimental pain for another guy after being hit in the balls, the way some people might have “sentimental pregnancies,” going to the bathroom as frequently as their pregnant friend, or eating as much as them. Looking at them, I would guess that was true.

            When the illusionary pain subsided, the boys seemed to suddenly recall what had happened before I started hailing down Hell on Crowley.

            Sam turned to me, a look dawning on his face – one that I could easily guess the meaning of. He opened his mouth to speak, and a surprised sound came out with the question, “ _Bobby_?”


	15. Angel

            I didn’t see a way out of this one. I wanted so badly to find a reason – any reason – to no answer him. Why did it always come to that? It always came down to a question I didn’t want to answer. I hoped this one wouldn’t kill me.

            I took a deep breath and put on the best bitch face I could. Hopefully it didn’t come off too fake. “Yeah. Bobby.” I turned to face Sam. “Do you need your ears cleaned?”

            “How the hell do you know Bobby?” Dean asked. I don’t think it was really a question. It sounded like he was just forming his thoughts aloud.

            I rolled my head backwards and looked to sky, as if asking the ceiling how he could be this stupid. “That hunter that adopted me?” I exclaimed. “A nice old drunk by the name of Bobby Singer.”

            I knew they had already guessed it, they had to have, but they still looked surprised. “My full name?” I said. “Elizabeth Julie Singer. Well, I was Elizabeth Julie Rosen, but I only knew my birth parents for the first six months of my life, so it’s not like I had any real attachment to the name.” I turned around to look at Crowley, to confront him. I had opened my mouth to phrase a question, when I realized he was no longer there. I tilted my head in a questioning look, but it obviously didn’t do much good. When the boys noticed, they just looked around the room, then decided not to bother with him. I shook my head at them and walked out.

            I had no idea where Crowley might have gone, and it wasn’t like I wanted to find him, so I just started walking. Again I had no idea where I was going, but that still didn’t stop me. I moved like I had a purpose – and I did. Getting out of this God awful place was my purpose, at the moment. After I got out, though, it would be finding a way to avoid the Winchesters.

            The men in question had decided not to follow me this time, it seemed. I didn’t turn around to check, but it sounded like I was alone. Which called my attention to something I found rather strange; why did this place seem empty? Weren’t there supposed to be demon guards or something? I shrugged it off, but it kept my attention in a small corner of my brain.

            I rounded a corner and saw a familiar door – one painted in bright red sigils. Figuring I was probably out of options, I went inside. As I opened the doors, I noticed where my fingers had smudged the paint. At the time, I hadn’t thought much of it. Now, though . . . Growing up in a hunter’s life had taught me to analyze the little details. What was it Sam had said? Angel warding. Well, I guess angels could pass through these doors now. Why would Crowley care, anyway?

            _Castiel_.

            It was a little, fleeting thought, but I could tell, it wasn’t mine. Whatever it was that instigated my psychic sense, or whatever the heck you want to call it, had decided to act up. I didn’t know where the word came from, and I had never heard the word before, but it definitely wasn’t a human thought. Those were always easy to pick out.

            Castiel . . . I focused on the thought, trying to trace it back to its owner. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be, and only took me a few seconds to find another – longer – thought.

            Catching snippets, I tried to piece them together. . . . _Angel of the Lord . . . Angel of Thursdays . . . friend of the Winchesters . . . raised Dean from Hell . . . fought Raphael . . . heaven . . . control . . . Crowley . . . Purgatory . . . the souls . . ._

            From the bits and pieces that I understood, I managed to comprise a story. Castiel, an angel obviously, brought Dean up from Hell and has since been BFFs with the Winchesters, until he decided working with Crowley was the best way to win the war in Heaven. As for the whole Purgatory thing . . . I couldn’t figure out what that meant. But I didn’t care. I had the information that I wanted. I still didn’t know the source, but I don’t think that mattered.

            I hadn’t gotten a good look of the room before, and now took that opportunity. It had a high-vaulted ceiling, with more than four walls, and two layers for the floor. The top layer, the one I was standing on, was almost like a catwalk leading to a set of stairs that went down to the main floor. I followed the walk and went to the octagon-shaped floor. A metal table sat in the middle of the room, but other than that, it was empty. Why would Crowley ward this room against angels? Why this specific room?

            _He wasn’t warding them, he was trapping them._

            This time I knew where it was coming from. I spun about-face to see a man standing in the doorway. I had never met him before, nor had I seen him through someone else’s head, but it wasn’t hard to figure out who he was. “Castiel,” I presumed.

            He nodded. His trench coat floated around his ankles as he walked towards me. “I should thank you, Elizabeth,” he said.

            “Liz,” I automatically corrected. “Elizabeth is what people call me when they’re really pissed and I’m about to get yelled at or beat up.” I realized what I said as soon as it came out. I didn’t want to be saying things like that to someone I didn’t know. I tried covering it by saying, “And you’re welcome.”

            He nodded again, and I noticed his wrist twitch. I looked to see a blade sliding out of his coat sleeve. “And I’m sorry for this.”

            I shook my head, confused. “Sorry for . . ?” Then it registered. A yelp escaped my lips, and I backed up, into the table, just as he swung. Barely missing me, he paid no heed to slowing down. The angel came at me again, and I ran. I didn’t want to fight. I never did. Of course, it was usually because I didn’t want to hurt the other guy, but I think it was safe to say this time, it was because I didn’t want the other guy hurting me.

            He appeared in front of me, literally out of nowhere, and blocked the door. With the only exit covered, I backed into a corner. I reached for the knife that wasn’t there. I remembered, too late, that I had left it in that room after Dean beat the crap out of me. I wished so bad I hadn’t left it there. I patted Dean’s jacket, hoping he wouldn’t have taken any knives or – _anything,_ really – out of the pockets before giving it to me. My hand hit something hard in the left pocket. I reached in and pulled out a gun. I stared at it, for longer than I should have. When I looked back up, Castiel was standing over me. Just standing. He didn’t seem to want to kill me, but definitely seemed like he was going to. I ran over to a different corner.

            I recalled placing Dean’s gun in the jacket pocket, a little while ago. I was surprised it hadn’t fallen out when he threw me into the ground. I flipped off the safety and cocked it as I turned around. Barely bothering to aim, I pulled the trigger. The bullet dove itself into Castiel’s shoulder, but he barely paid any heed.

            I managed to get someone’s attention, though. I could hear someone’s thoughts, almost shouting in their head. It was so loud that I couldn’t understand the words. I got the gist though. Someone was coming. Hopefully it would be to help.


	16. Layers

            “Cas?” someone said. “What the hell are you doing?”

            Castiel froze. He lowered the blade and turned around slowly. I looked around him to see Sam and Dean standing on the catwalk above us. They made their way to the stairs. Dean went straight for Cas, a concerned look in his eyes, but Sam headed to me. He put his arms around my shoulders, checking to make sure I was okay. I just stared up at him. I still didn’t understand why he cared so much. I wasn’t used to people caring. Honestly, it kind of scared me. When he took another step closer, I took a step back. I stumbled away from him, trying to get away from that questioning, concerned stare.

            Dean was speaking to Cas in hushed tones. I tried focusing on that instead. I couldn’t catch any of the words. I shook Sam out of my head and tried to concentrate. That didn’t work. I ended up concentrating so hard on trying to focus, that I couldn’t focus on what I wanted to. Instead, my “psychic link” opened up. I caught snippets from Dean, mostly concerned about Castiel, pieces from Sam, who was mostly focused on me, but what caught my attention the most was Cas himself. He was thinking about me. Or at least, I’m pretty sure it was me. If I was right, then he was thinking about why he had to kill me.

            His thoughts were strange. When I heard a humans’ thoughts, it was a ripple of noise in which I could barely distinguish one thought from another. Demons were usually more organized, with only their most present thought drifting around. If I dug around in their head, it wouldn’t take me long to find anything I wanted. The majority of monsters, with the exception of ghosts and vampires, and a small handful of other undead things, had a one-track mind, which means that their thoughts were literally one at a time; I would hear one thought, and then another, and another, like a radio broadcast almost.

            Castiel was nothing like this. I had never heard the thoughts of an angel before, but this sounded more like a song. Truly, honestly, a song. It almost reminded me of the sirens of Greek mythology. His mind, his _words,_ sounded to me like a drifted opera note, but not nearly as high. It was almost a lullaby. Yet, to me, the notes seemed to translate themselves into actual words, but without changing the melody. It was almost like a sixth sense. No, it was like when you’re fluent in two languages and are translating the one language into another almost subconsciously. That’s what it was like.

            “Hey, Liz,” I heard Sam say. Slowly, I brought myself back to reality. “You okay?”

            I shook my head, trying to clear it, but then realized that made it look like I was saying no. “Yeah,” I said instead. “Yeah, I’m good. I’m fine.” He nodded, and turned to face his brother and their angel friend.

            “Cas, what the Hell?!”

            Castiel looked down in what I think was shame. The angel didn’t seem very good at displaying emotions. He looked back up, and this time I could tell what he was feeling. He didn’t want to upset Sam and Dean, but whatever he had been trying to do, he felt very strongly about, and believed it was the right thing. “She needs to die. She’s an abomination. She’s not even supposed to exist!”

            “ _She_ is right here, thank you very much!” I exclaimed before either of the boys got a word in edgewise. “And she doesn’t appreciate being referred to as if she doesn’t exist. And why the Hell isn’t she supposed to exist?” I took a breath before correcting myself. “I mean, why the Hell aren’t I supposed to exist?” He just stared at me, tightlipped and unmoving. He grip tightened around his sword. Which I now realized looked exactly like the one I had defended myself with barely an hour ago. That’s why Sam and Dean were so confused and scared by my having it – it was an angel’s blade. Had they thought I was an angel? _Am_ I an angel? I had heard stories from Demons’ heads about fallen angels that lost their Grace. Some of them didn’t even remember who they were after they lost it.

            I delved into Castiel’s mind. His singing thoughts wrapped around me as I tried to find what I wanted. I had never listened to an angel’s thoughts before today, and had no way to know how organized, or disorganized, his head would be. I knew what I was looking for though, and it didn’t take me long to find it.

            Thoughts, or at least the way I see them, are divided into layers. The top layer is whatever your immediate thoughts are. The second layer is usually memories. If you have brain problems, memories might be on the third layer. There are seven layers in total. For humans, at least.

            The second layer, the one with all the memories, is, for people, spread into hallways. Each hallway represents a year, and each door in the hallways represents a memory. Go through the door, and you’re in one of their strongest memories. You might think that it would be organized by time, but nope. It’s not organized at all. At least, not to the untrained eye. I’ve spent a good part of my life digging through other people’s heads, so I’ve learned. I’ve learned that only the memories you remember best get a room. Everything else is typically spread out in the hallways, as images on the walls. If you’re a skilled enough psychic (like me) you can create rooms for those memories, or you could even destroy rooms. I had never done so, but I knew I could.

            What I was looking for wasn’t in the memories, though, so I sunk down another layer.

            Emotions. That is typically layer three. This layer is just a void space, with no ceiling, no walls, and if you weren’t standing on it, you would think there was no floor. It was just . . . space. The only thing to fill the emptiness were lines. They were like threads, stretching this way and that, up and over and around other lines, and some lines were knotted to each other. Different colors for different emotions, different textures for different people. Like a sixth sense, something told me what each one meant.

            In what I assumed was the center, were three large knots. The largest, the one that had to have been here the longest, was twisted with so many different colors. Anger, love, hope, loyalty, bleakness . . . I think it was for Heaven. Poor Castiel . . . No. No, don’t feel bad for the person that just tried to kill you. No Stockholm syndrome for you.

            The second largest knot was also wound with multiple colors, but most of them were warm. Warmer colors – red, yellow, orange, the like – tended to represent softer emotions – love, fondness, caring. I placed my hand over the knot and felt it throbbing, like a heartbeat. The harder, faster, it beat, the stronger the represented emotions. The strength of the beating shocked me. Whoever this knot was for, Castiel cared a great deal for them.

            The third knot was closely intertwined with the one my hand was still on. The colors were paler, the knot smaller, but the emotions were still there. These two were closer than family to Cas.

            As I backed away from the three knots, looking to find my own, I noticed a black thread circling them. It was thin, and barely noticeable, and I doubted even Castiel knew it was there. I had never seen black threads in an abundance before, but I knew it represented a terrible hate. Why it was here, I wasn’t sure. But I was sure that it seemed to mostly wrap around Heaven’s knot. I kicked it back a bit.

            I kicked it. I messed with Castiel’s emotions. I had promised myself – and Bobby – that I would never do that. Didn’t I? But no one deserved that amount of hate. Not even all of Heaven.

            I sunk down to the next layer.  The fourth – the middle – was always the most confusing, no matter whose head you were inside of. And Cas’ grapefruit was no exception. It was a rambunctious jumble of confusing images, and sounds, and tastes – yes, tastes. The most prominent of which seemed to be red meat. Pushing that aside, I listened, trying to pull out specific words or images.

            It was too much. I couldn’t figure it out. Why couldn’t a celestial being control his own thoughts?!

            They weren’t his.

            Or at least, some of them weren’t. That’s why he couldn’t control it. He was in a vessel – a human vessel – which would always amount to a confused mind.

            “Castiel?” I hollered into the barren sounds. “Make your head shut up!”

            I wasn’t expecting any response. Why would I? But I got one. One by one, the thoughts stopped. The images stopped swirling in front of my eyes, the sounds stopped rustling between my ears. Even the taste of hamburger left my mouth.

            “Thank you,” I said to no one in particular. I sounded more sincere than I was. “Now then, if you could do me a favor and tell me _why you want to kill me,_ that would be wonderful.”

            Again, I got a response. It was slow, much slower than getting his thought process to stop was, but I didn’t mind. I waited it out patiently while one single thought formed in front of me.

            _What?_ I thought to myself. _What the Hell does that mean?_

            Going back up to the top layer, I brought myself out of his thoughts. Sam, Dean, and Cas were ignoring me. I guess they hadn’t noticed my near-vegetative state that I get when I go that far into someone’s head. I shook off the dry feeling, and brought their attention back to me.

            “Who the fuck is Azazel?” I asked.


	17. Demon

            “What?” Sam asked. The three turned to face me.

            “I said,” I repeated, “who. The fuck. Is. Azazel.”

            “He’s – he’s a demon.” Sam took a step towards me, his eyebrows scrunching in confusion. “How do you know him?”

            I made a disgusted sound, expressing my annoyance as best I could. I’m sure my expression did a better job, though. “I never said I knew him. In fact, I think I said I _didn’t_ know him, and want to know who he is.”

            Dean coughed, and I turned my attention over to him. He was still standing by Cas. He seemed to be protecting the angel. Wasn’t I the one that needed protection here?

            “If you don’t know him,” he stated, “how do you know his name?”

            I twisted my fingers together. Where was the angel blade? I’d have thought they would bring it with them. Sam and Dean only had their own weapons, though. “I found it in his head,” I said finally, pointing at Castiel.

            That stunned them, and no one talked for a while. After several minutes in the silent staring contest, I mustered up enough strength to stalk my way over to the trench coated angel. Getting as close as I felt comfortable with – just barely out of stabbing distance – I looked him in the eye and said, “Why do you want to kill me?”

            He started to open his mouth, but I quickly cut him off before he could say what I was sure he would.

            “And don’t give me any of this ‘I have to’ or ‘It’s heaven’s orders’ crap. I want _real answers._ Give me specifics. Details, Castiel!” He looked down at me. His eyes squinted, his head tilted. It made him look like a confused puppy. So that’s what I took it for. “I want a step-by-step analysis of why you want me dead. And you two!” I exclaimed, turning on my heel to face the Winchesters. “You have five seconds to tell me exactly who Azazel is. ‘Cause if you don’t, there won’t be much left of your heads when I’m done. It’ll be overcooked spaghetti.” Dean wrinkled his nose at my comparison, and I started counting.

            “One!”

            No one moved.

            “Two!”

            Sam shifted his weight and scratched the back of his head.

            “Three!”

            Dean rocked back on his heels, humming something that sounded a little too much like Metallica.

            “Four!”

            I felt my cheeks heat up. I wasn’t blushing. I was getting ready.

            I opened my mouth and pressed my lips to my teeth.

            “He’s a demon!” Dean exclaimed finally, cutting me off just as I started to say the next number.

            I rolled my eyes at him. “Yeah, thanks, Einstein. I got that much.”

            “Yellow eyes tried to make an army out of some kids a while back,” Dean continued. He took a breath. I could tell he was trying to figure out how to explain whatever it was he was going to say. “Their parents would make a deal. Like, with a devil.”

            “Yeah, crossroads demons. I know the gist,” I told him. I actually knew a little more than just the gist. One of the demons I had hunted down when I lived with Bobby was a crossroads. I had tracked her down to a bar, dug through her mind, and, after finding the way to kill her, I did. I had picked up a lot more than just how to kill crossroads demons, though.

            “Right,” Dean continued, completely oblivious to my trip down memory lane. “So, when their parents made the deals, their end of the contract, instead of their souls, was their kids.” He took a breath and looked at Sammy. The look that crossed between them was almost unreadable. I wish I knew what was said in that look . . . No, I won’t.

            Sam made a short nod, almost as if he was giving his brother permission. Dean sighed before saying, “Sam here was one of them. Yellow eyes – Azazel – he . . . he put some of his blood in Sam.” He took a deep breath before going on. “He did that with all the kids. It gave them some sort of . . . psychic ability, I guess.”

            “I had visions,” Sam said, continuing for Dean. “I could see the future. Mostly of people dying. And it was always connected to the Demon.”

            I had been listening intently. I was still confused as to why that would make Castiel want to kill me, but at least I understood who Azazel was now.

            “Wait,” I said, catching something. “You said was. And had. And could. Do you not have visions anymore?”

            He shook his head. “No. After we killed him, it went away.”

            I nodded. That was a bit more to take in. “Of course. You killed him. Um . . . wait, that knife, you didn’t get that until after he was gone. Because you didn’t know Ruby then. So how did you kill . . . Holy crap. Do you have the Colt?” As I was saying it, I realized I was speaking from their memories, not mine, but I didn’t care. I had made another realization. “Holy crap. Did _I_ have the Colt? That gun – the one you tried to kill me with, the one I took from you – was that it?”

            “Yeah, um.” Sam paused. He looked at me . . . he looked at me in a way I couldn’t describe. He was almost disappointed, it seemed, but at the same time, he was scared. Why was everyone always afraid of me? “How do you know about Ruby?”

            I rolled my neck, answering, “Look, Sam, I’ve been in your head. There’s not a lot I don’t know.” Dean took a very threatening-looking step towards me, and I quickly corrected myself. “Not on purpose! And as for Ruby, well, frankly, she’s an evil, conniving bitch.”

            “So what does this Demon have to do with – “ I turned to face Castiel, only to find that he had disappeared. “Huh. Does he do that often?”

            “Very.”

            “Alright then.”


	18. Searching

            Sam and Dean were walking. I was following. It had been this way for a while.

            “You sure you know the way out?” I asked again.

            “Shut up,” Dean responded. He turned down another hallway. The building twisted and turned too many times, and my running around in circles hadn’t helped.

            Now that we had all calmed down enough to get us out of here, we couldn’t. The dark hallways didn’t seem to have an end. Every time we turned, it looked the same. How were we to know if it was or wasn’t?

            We kept walking. I stayed a few paces behind, because I knew it would be a while till I trusted them. Though, to be honest, I didn’t think that would ever happen. Three turns later, I had had enough. A half hour of walking without going anywhere was too much. “Alright, stop!” I called. Sam and Dean froze in their tracks and turned to face me.

            “What is it?” Sam asked. His eyes were back to more caring and concerned than scared and annoyed.

            I closed my eyes, saying, “I’ve had enough of this.”

            “Enough of what?”

            “Of walking, you idjit!” I refocused my concentration, trying to get it where I wanted it. “I’ll find the way out for you.”

            “You’ll what?” Dean said. “How exactly do you plan on doing that?”

            I rolled my head on my shoulders and sighed. If you listened closely, you could hear the sound of a dean man’s heart breaking. “By doing something I promised I wouldn’t.” The next thing I heard was in my head.

            Sam and Dean were absent from my hearing. Hell, I think my ears were absent from my hearing. The only thing I noticed was the swarms of thoughts that I had now allowed into my mind. Snippets darted around. The ones that stayed in one place long enough for me to understand them were completely irrelevant to what I wanted. I dug further.

            I quickly found a nearby demon with a strong mental signal. I dove into his brain, ignoring the first layer. Quickly delving into the second layer, I looked for the most prominent hallway. It’s weird to describe a hallway as “prominent,” but, if possible, this one was. It stuck out like a sore thumb, and I didn’t even bother double checking before deciding this one was for this year.

            Some memories – like the one I was looking for – are little more than something you do every day, or nearly so. These memories never get rooms devoted to them; they’re always looped images, like a gif. They are usually situated on the walls, sometimes in picture frames, if whatever it happens to be is repeated enough. If it is something that the owner of the memory thinks needs to be remembered more often, it could usually be found flickering on the ceiling like a hologram.

            This is where I looked for this specific memory. And how lucky I was – there it was, smack in the middle of the ceiling. The now-familiar hallways twisted around and eventually brought themselves to a door.

            I couldn’t figure it out. Where was it going? And my neck was really starting to hurt from craning it back. How could my neck hurt when I technically wasn’t even moving it? I didn’t know. I’d never bothered trying to figure out the physics of a dream world. Maybe I should, if I have enough downtime.

            I focused just long enough to move the image to a wall. I walked over to that – well, more of a glide really, since I didn’t really exist at the moment – and studied it. I still couldn’t understand it. How did he know where to turn? How would _I_ know where to turn?

            I watched it loop over and over a few more times before I gave up. “Oh, screw it,” I exclaimed to no one in particular. I sighed, preparing myself, and mentally apologized to Bobby. Then I reached out with both hands and gently pushed on the image of the halls. Before I fully understood if I was doing it right or not, the hallway shifted and a door appeared, the image disappearing. “Don’t worry, Freak,” I muttered as I opened it. “I’ll put everything back the way I found it.” I entered.

            I followed the path of the demon. I moved as he moved, and committed the steps to memory. After four laps, I decided I had it down, and went ahead of the demon. This was a hard thing to do, considering it was his memory, but now it was mine, too.

            Making sure I had the steps right, and every turn, I finally left. I carefully turned the door back into a picture, and threw it back on the ceiling. I managed to find my way out of his rambled head – if I didn’t know better, I’d guess he was drunk. Back in my body, I breathed normally again. I shook off the gross feeling that demon’s brains gave me, and was back in my own head in no time.

            “Well?” Dean exclaimed. He and his brother had barely moved. I figured I probably hadn’t been inside his brain that long.

            I looked to Dean and said, “I got it.” I pushed past them and started walking. I didn’t bother to see if they were following. I knew they would. “Come on, the exit’s this way.”


	19. Interest

_Third Person POV – Sam and Dean_

The Impala groaned as it reached a stop sign. They had reached Kansas nearly half an hour ago, and were nearing on the Men of Letters Headquarters. With nearly a five hour drive behind them, Liz had fallen asleep in the backseat almost as soon as they had pulled out of Crowley’s torture chambers.

            Dean glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “So?” he asked his brother.

            “So, what?” Sam glanced over, but Dean just gave him a look that said he should know the answer. “So, what are we going to do about Liz?”

            “Yeah,” Dean said, turning the wheel. “I don’t trust her.”

            Sam scoffed. “Yeah, I got that.”

            The elder Winchester looked to his brother in annoyance. “I’m serious, Sam.”

            “So am I! Look, Dean. She’s got nowhere else to go but with us. If she goes back home, demons could find her again. Hell, who says her home is even still there?” He sighed and looked over his shoulder at the girl. It hadn’t taken her long to curl up and sleep. She was still in that tightknit ball she had fit herself into when she climbed into the backseat. Sam didn’t much like his brother’s reaction towards her. They were supposed to help people. So what if she was psychic? He used to be, and, sure, it had nearly drove his brother crazy, but they figure it out. They should do the same with Liz.

            She was such a tough girl. Or at least that’s how she showed herself. Seeing her like this, with the crease gone from her forehead, and her eyes softer, and her feet still, Sam could almost imagine that there was a lot more to her. A piece of her that hadn’t been broken or harden with time and pain.

            As Sam watched Liz sleep, Dean watched Sam. He knew what was going on in his head, or he at least had a pretty good idea. Dean had always prided himself on knowing everything that happened in his brother’s head. Since the trials started, though, he hadn’t been able to say that. He still knew, but sometimes Sam did something that he didn’t expect. This was not one of those things.

            Dean knew Sam felt responsible for this girl for some reason – no, not for some reason. He knew exactly why. Sam felt he was just like her. But that didn’t make sense. Sam wasn’t anything like this crazy chick. Was he?

            He turned back to the road and kept driving.

            It was a long while before either spoke. When someone did, it wasn’t about the girl in the backseat. “How are you?” Dean asked.

            “I’m fine,” Sam answered immediately, his eyes wide and innocent-looking.

            “You sure?” Dean wondered. “Because since you cut open that Hellhound, you haven’t exactly been top of your game.”

            “Yes, Dean. I’m sure.”

            “Alright.” The numbers on his dash barely turned a tenth of a mile later before Dean spoke again. “What’s the deal with Liz?”

            “What do you mean?”  
            “I mean, why do you want to protect her so much?” In the nearing darkness of the setting sun, Dean looked over at his younger brother, the one he had fought so hard to protect. He only hoped the thing to end that protection wouldn’t be a girl. “She’s been nothing but trouble, and she’s given us no reason to think that she’s one of the good guys. Cas showing up and wanting to kill her just proves that. And somehow, she’s connected to Yellow Eyes. Who’s been dead for years! Now what’s got your interest?”

            Sam shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, she’s . . . She’s broken, Dean. Can’t you see that? And I don’t just mean physically, or mentally. There’s a part of her that’s broken, and probably will never be fixed. I doubt she even realizes it, but I see it. It’s there.” He sighed and looked back at Liz. “I just don’t think she’s bad. We’ve seen bad – I’ve _been_ bad – and I don’t think she is.”

            Dean turned down the drive, the gravel making a familiar rumble beneath his tires. “I hope you’re right, Sammy.” He glanced in the rearview mirror as the Bunker neared. “Wake her up, will you?”


	20. Scared

THREE MONTHS LATER

            I woke panting, a memory of a memory of a scream still rattling around in my brain. I looked over at Sam, curled up in a chair he had pulled next to the bed. How had he not heard me? Had the screaming just been in my dreams or had I actually done that?

            I leaned back in the bed and wrapped the blankets closer. I squeezed my eyes shut, but the images of red blood and silver blades and so many other things showed behind them. I opened them again, watching the shadows dance around the room. I wasn’t going back to sleep, was I? Giving up, I threw the blankets off my torso and snaked my hand over to Sam. I didn’t want to wake him, but the nightmares always went away when he was here. Maybe sleep wouldn’t elude me if he was there beside me. I wrapped my fingers inside of his giant ones and squeezed. He was a light sleeper, like his brother, which made me sure he would be awake in moments. He didn’t disappoint, and had merely opened his eyes and seen me lying there before climbing into bed with me. Ignoring his scratchy jeans, I rolled into his warm body, and he pulled me closer. His arms wrapped around me, and his fingers found their way to my hair. I was asleep a lot quicker than I thought I would be.

            The next time I woke, Sam was gone. I didn’t mind – I had been expecting it. I had definitely slept better with him beside me, though. I crawled out of the queen-size, pulling a thin blanket with me. I wrapped it around my shoulders as I found my way to the library. Once there, I found both boys already relaxing at tables. Sam smiled at me, and Dean blatantly ignored me. His feelings towards me hadn’t changed much in three months, but he had certainly gotten nicer. I didn’t mind that either. I felt the same way towards him.

             I pulled a piece of string out of my pocket to tie my hair up, then took a guess at where the kitchen was. Three months and I still got confused with every turn in this place. Then again, who knew how long the Winchesters had been here, and they were still making wrong turns. Lucky for me, I guessed the right direction, and found myself in the kitchen. There were way too many cupboards, and for the first few days I had been here, I didn’t even set foot in the kitchen. Now, I was still trying to figure out where to go. I pulled out random things until I found bowls. I managed to pour myself a bowl of cereal, complete with milk and a spoon, before heading back to the library. I sat myself on top of a table and started eating. Next to me was Sam, scrolling through some page on his laptop. I quickly finished my cereal and sat the now empty bowl on the other side of me before reaching out and twisting his laptop to face me.

            “Hey!” he complained, but didn’t bother to take it back. I probably wouldn’t have let him if he had, anyways.

            “Oh, Sammy . . .” I murmured, clicking through his tabs. “I think I would’ve preferred porn,” I told him. “What are you researching-“ I glanced at the search bar “-Hell Hound blood for anyways?”

            He sighed and finally reached out for his laptop. I ignored his hand as the fingers tried to close around the screen that was just out of his reach and opened up a new tab. I quickly checked my email and Facebook – which Dean had constantly suggested against – to see nothing of interest. I still had friends, though. I had quit my job through email, claiming a family crisis, but had tried to keep in contact with people I had met.

            Not finding anything that peaked my interest, I logged out and handed it back. Then I jumped up and started weaving in and out of shelving. I had spent most of my time here lately looking through anything that sounded weird. Most of the books were extremely old and didn’t have titles displayed on the sides, so I ignored those and got to the really interesting ones. These were – of course – hidden about half way down the rows. Once I had found an area of books that sounded promising to keep me in its grasps for some time, I pulled one off the shelf and random and skipped back over to Sam. I sat down in a chair this time, directly across from him, and slung my legs over an arm, and leaned against the other.

            “ _A Complete Collection of the History of Werewolves_ ,” I read aloud. From the corner of my eye, I saw Sam glance up, but other than that, he ignored my little dispute. I opened the book up to the Table of Contents, then flipped to the chapter titled _The Creation_. Sounds interesting, doesn’t it? But I didn’t get to read a single word before it was ripped from my hands.

            Well, I say ripped. More like gently pulled out of curiosity. Dean now stood above me, holding the book. He flipped through the pages at random before handing it back, now closed. I glared at him, but took it. I didn’t open it back up, though; instead, I set it down on the table. Something about the way he had held it that now made me not want to.

            I hopped back up and walked over to the bedroom that I now sort-of-but-not-really shared with Sam. I wanted to run, I wanted to get away from Dean, but I forced my feet to be slow. Even after so long living with him, poking through his stuff while he went out on hunts, I was still terrified of him. I still had yet to be left alone in a room with him. I hoped that never happened.

            Once in Sam’s room – I could not and probably never would call it mine – I pulled open a drawer. Inside, I found all the clothes and other necessary health items that the boys had bought for me over the last few months. It wasn’t exactly a large amount. It didn’t bother me; it didn’t need to be. It only needed to be enough to survive until someone realized that I needed more, and washed them. I grabbed a pair of faded jeans and a plaid button-up that was now too small for Sam and had wound its way up with my stash. I quickly changed and headed back.

            It took the boys a while longer than I thought it would for them to notice that I was heading to the door. Dean was first. “Where do you think you’re going?” he demanded.

            “Out,” I answered simply. I knew that wouldn’t be enough for him, though. I stopped and faced him. “Going for a run. That okay with you?” It didn’t matter if it was okay with him, and he knew it. He dropped it and let me head outside. I hit the dirt road running.


	21. Nowhere

            I don’t know how long I ran for. I don’t care. I just kept moving, kept my feet hitting the gravel. I ran until there was no more gravel, and was still going. After the tar left from under my sneakers, and was suddenly above rocks and grass and tree stumps, I brought myself back to reality. I stopped moving, slowly waiting for my vision to refocus, for my brain to catch up to my body.

            When it finally did, I found myself in a forest. I don’t know how I got there. I had probably just ran and ran and hadn’t stopped. Trees were on every side, and I couldn’t remember how many turns I had taken to look.  I wandered around, forcing my feet forward, trying to find a road. Instead I found a house.

            It was a small log cabin, placed in the middle of ever-loving nowhere. Typical.

            Without any other options, I went inside. The smart thing would be to look for a phone first, but even if I had done that, I doubted I could find any signal. I turned on the sink and dunked my head under it. The cool, metallic tasting water poured over my hair, turning it silky. Tiny droplets found their way to my eyes, winding inside and around them. The water dribbled down the back of my neck, sending shivers down my spine as the cold liquid tickled my skin. When my hair was firmly soaked, I turned my neck and caught the water on my tongue as it spilled from the pipe. I gulped it down lavishly. Running had taken more out of me than I thought it had - probably because I hadn’t realized how long I had been running for.

            Done with that, I glanced around the cabin. No phone visible, as I had suspected. I did find a map hanging on the wall, but considering that it wasn’t even of anywhere in the States, I doubted it would be much use to me.

            In fact, anything that could have been useful, was completely absent from the room. Hell of a place to live, I figured. At least it had running water and electricity.

            I left to wander around the rest of the cabin. Unlike my first impression of the place, it wasn’t a one-room house. In the area I was standing in, there was a small kitchen area shaped in a rectangle, with a small bar blocking it from the rest of the cabin. Outside of that, there was a small sitting area and a dining table, which was crowded in age-old newspapers. I twisted around to view the other side, and found a small bathroom and a steel, spiral staircase. My sneakers clacked against the metal as I wound my way up it.

            Upstairs was a small landing, which led to two bedrooms on either side, and a large window looking out to the trees. There was nothing useful in either room. Figures.

            Finding myself back downstairs, I opened the fridge. Of course it was empty. Just my luck, right? There wasn’t anything in the freezer, either.

            I threw open a few cupboards, but the best I managed to find was a six pack. I popped one open and sipped while I shuffled through the newspapers on the table. The youngest one I could find was at least a week ago. Better than the oldest, though; three years, give or take. They were all for the local newspaper, though. That was a good thing. At least I hadn’t found my way too far off from the Bunker. Now if only I could find my way back.

            A familiar sound cocked behind me.

            “Oh, please tell me that’s not a rifle,” I muttered.

            “Alright,” the voice to go with the gun said as it was pressed to my back. “But I don’t wanna lie.”

            Trying to ignore the possibility that a bullet could delve itself into my back at any moment, I glanced over my shoulder. There I saw an unshaven, childish looking man with a distinct set of ears and a nose. His hat, a faded, ripped ball cap, seemed a little too big for his skinny head. Though frankly, his whole self was skinny. It was a miracle his pants stayed up, in my opinion.

            “What are you doing here?” he asked, pulling the rifle back a ways.

            I laughed, trying to sound like I actually knew what I was doing. “I could ask you the same question.”

            “I’m living here,” he said. “Temporarily . . .”

            “Hell of a place to live,” I intoned, looking around. “Doesn’t look too cozy.”

            He nodded, backing up. He set the gun down on a table. “Yeah, not really. But, hey, it gets the job done.”

            “You sure?” I asked. “Those beds upstairs didn’t look too comfortable.” I glanced around, trying to figure out if I could arm myself, or if that would even be helpful.

            _Bring, bring . . . Bring, bring_

            A phone rang, startling me out of my thoughts.

            “Would you excuse me,” he said with a slight, manic grin. He was crazy. I had stumbled into the house of a crazy man. Who had a gun.

            “Phillis,” the man said after taking a few steps away. Why did that sound familiar? Oh, well. It was his name, anyway, not the name of the person he was greeting. “Yeah. One of the best agents we got.” He paused, listening. “Well, then, you better do exactly as he says, you hear?” Another pause. “That’s what I thought.” He grinned at himself and hung up.

            . . .

            Finally, the pieces clicked together. As if the hat wasn’t enough.

            “What’s your name?” I asked.

            “Garth Fitzgerald the fourth,” he replied, tipping his hat in a welcome. “But you can call me Garth.”


	22. Wendigo

            “Thanks for the ride,” I told Garth, “but you really don’t need to go in.”

            “Nah, I’ll escort the lady,” he told me kindly, but still with that strange grin, as if he had a secret that wasn’t really a secret, but no one else realized. “‘Sides, I’m sure the bros have missed me.”

            “Yeah . . .” I didn’t know the answer to that, so I didn’t tell him.

            “How’d you say you knew them again?”

            I walked up to the rusting front door, hoping it wasn’t locked. “I didn’t.”

            I pushed on the door, and to my luck, it opened. I turned to face Garth. “Seriously, you don’t need to come in.”

            “Nah, I’ll be in and out,” he insisted. He pushed the door open further and continued without me.

            “Dammit,” I muttered, following him.

            “Hey, Deano,” I heard. It sounded like he had made it to the library already. Was his skinny frame seriously that quick?

            “Garth?!” Great. Now I had to deal with an upset Dean for who know how long. “What – what are you doing here?”

            “Gave Lizzie a ride home.”

            I growled low in my throat. “Liz!” I corrected loudly, like I had done at least ten times on the way here. “It’s _Liz_.”

            I finally made it to the library . . . to find Dean and Garth _hugging_.

            “Um . . .” They separated, and Garth leaned over a table and pulled Sam into a slightly unwilling hug. I could see Sam squirming out of his arms from here. “Hope I’m not interrupting anything?”

            “No, nothing,” Dean said, clearing his throat. “So, uh, Garth. What are you doing here?”

            “Found a wendigo. Isn’t that why you’re here? And nice digs, by the way.”

            “Yeah. I mean – no. Garth. Wendigo? What wendigo?”

            “The one that’s been snatching up campers ‘round town.” Sam and Dean glanced at each other, more lost than I’d ever seen them. “What, you haven’t heard of it?”

            “Uh,” Dean stuttered.

            As much as I enjoyed seeing Dean at a loss for words, I decided to be the knight in shining armor. “That’s what all the newspapers were for,” I intoned. “At your cabin. “How about you and Dean go back to get your notes, and Sam and I can do some research? Find out what we can.”

            Sam nodded in agreement, and Dean somehow managed to get Garth out the door.

            While Sam pulled up sites on his laptop, I took a look around the library. I managed to find a card catalog that Sam apparently didn’t know about, and looked up everything I could find on wendigos. Since it hadn’t been Bobby’s favorite subject, and they were extremely rare in South Dakota, he hadn’t thought it necessary to teach me too much about them.

            I walked over to Sam, plopped four extremely thick books on the table, and said, “Time to brush up on my monsters.”

            “Isn’t that a bit much?” Sam said in wonder.

            I pulled out a chair and started flipping through them. “Nah, it’s only got a chapter on wendigos in each book. It won’t be too hard. What about you? You find anything?”

            Sam sat up straighter and looked as though he was about to start giving a lecture. “Yeah. Actually, I probably found the exact same articles Garth did. Two teens go missing, Bear attacks local campsite . . . there’s tons more. None of it makes sense.” He thought, and corrected himself. “Well, nothing makes sense to an ordinary citizen.”

            “And we’re nothing if not ordinary, right?” I gave him a half-hearted grin. He shook his head, and we went back to our research, waiting for the other two to come back.


	23. Wander

            “Dean!” I growled. “Not on the books. Go – over there – put these papers somewhere else!”

            Dean – the nerve of him – grinned. Something about Garth seemed to get his spirits up. He was actually acting _sane_. That was a sight I hadn’t seen in all three months I’d known him. It was unnerving. “If you insist,” he said, and picked up the stack of newspapers he had plopped on my open books.

            I had three laid out in front of me, open and waiting to be read, and two more off to the side that I didn’t feel like picking through. Dean may not appreciate it, but one thing that I knew I was good for was the books.

            “Hey, Garth,” Sam said. “How’d you find this thing, anyway?”

            “Well it’s all over the news,” he answered, rummaging through the stack of newspapers closest to him. He glanced up to see both Sam and Dean staring at him with a rather odd look in their eyes. One I didn’t see very often. “You didn’t notice?” Garth kind of chuckled then, if you could call it that. It was more like a cough that came out wrong.

            “Wuh –“ Sam started to say something, then cleared his throat. “We’ve been a bit busy lately.” He glanced over at me with what seemed like a warning. He had filled me in on the trials within the first month I was here, and had completed the second one about a month ago. They hadn’t let me come.

            In fact, they’d barely let me outside. I wish I knew why, but . . . No. I wasn’t going to pry. Not only had I promised not to, I didn’t want to go down that road again. The last time . . . It became too easy. I could barely get myself to stop.

            “What’s all that for?” Garth said behind me, dragging me out of my own head. He had found whatever newspaper he had been looking for, and was now flipping through it.

            I shook my head, trying to focus my thoughts. Why couldn’t I focus?

            “Bobby . . . He didn’t like it when I went hunting, so I’ve never run into a wendigo. Didn’t even know they lived in these parts, to be honest. So, I’m brushing up.” I nodded, more to myself than anything else, still trying to get my brain to concentrate. The words seemed to be going right over my head, even though I could see them, knew they were going _into_ my head, not over it.

            I shook my head once more, and pushed the chair back, scraping the legs against the hard wood. Ignoring Sam’s questioning glance and Dean’s still confused look, I made my way to the kitchen. The winding hallways still made no sense to me, and I ended up in about three different storage rooms before I found the kitchen.

            I shrieked, and threw a hand over my mouth. God, I sounded like a scared little girl.

            Standing in front of me was someone I’d hoped never to see again. An angel in a trenchcoat.


	24. Grace

“Liz,” said Castiel. His eyebrows were furrowed. Why was he the one that was confused? “I was looking for Dean. Have you -”

I leapt forward, grabbing a - I don’t even know what it was, but I grabbed something, anything, from the counter and swung it at him. As it came into view, I found myself holding a butcher knife - the wrong way. I screeched once more and dropped it. As the blood started to flow out of my palm, I reacted to the pain I was supposed to be feeling. Crippling down to my knees, I grabbed my wrist. My brain worked faster than my eyes, remembering what it was supposed to do - keep me alive. With my good hand, I ripped off part of my shirt. I pushed my elbow up against my stomach, trying to hold the slippery fabric steady. It didn’t help that the shirt was about three sizes too big for me, but at least my midriff wouldn’t be exposed if I ever managed to rip it.

With one last pull, the fabric tore across the arm holding it down, and I held it against my palm. The blood soaked the already red shirt, and within seconds the black strips were even more red than the part of the shirt that was actually the color of my blood. I pressed the fabric into my hand, making it so tight I gasped. Wrapping it was harder. Why, why couldn’t I be left-handed? Or better yet, ambidextrous? Now that would make my life easier.

“Liz?” Castiel asked. I glanced up at him, but he was out of focus. Oh God, I hadn’t lost that much blood, had I? He leaned closer to me, and that’s when I realized what was wrong. Him. He was too close.

I shrieked. God, Liz, I thought. Stop, you sound like a child.

I fell backwards, trying to get away from him. I wanted to scream that at him - get away from me - but my voice had finally seemed to stop working. I suppose screaming was bad for it. Pulling the shirt taut, I awkwardly crab-walked backwards. “Liz, please,” the angel stressed. He reached forward, going for my hand. I pulled it away from him. The quick movement made me wince. I froze where I was, pushing against the blood-wet skin. Since my own personal torture session, I’d received a multitude of scarring, but they had stayed away from my palms. I guess that didn’t matter now.

Unable to keep myself moving much longer, Castiel grabbed my wrist. He held his other hand over it in a fist, and slowly opened it. A piercing white light came out of his hand, but it didn’t look like some sort of Harry Potter type thing. The light seemed to be a part of him. A part of him I had touched before.

And now I was touching it again, as the light pressed itself into my hand. It didn’t burn, though. I don’t know how it felt, how to describe it. It was like . . . a comfort, but also a pain. Like a warm memory of someone I couldn’t bear to think about. It wasn’t the calm before the storm, it was the eye of the hurricane.

Putting it into words would be a sin, honestly. It was like someone had taken the stars out of the sky and put them inside of me. And that was only a fraction of what Castiel had inside of him.

Because what I was feeling, it was Grace. It was his Grace. I had felt it before, when I had interpreted his mind. When I had intruded his mind. But this was a thousand times better. Then, I had only seen a glimpse of it. An angel’s Grace is located in its soul, not its mind. The only piece of its Grace that belongs within the thoughts is what to do with it.

It was over sooner than it began, and it faded. The light, the emotion, him. It was all gone.

I wanted it back. But only for a second. As soon as my brain came to terms with what had happened, I wanted him to stay out. To stay gone.

I looked around for the butcher knife I had grabbed. I saw the metal reflected in the light, my copper-scented blood falling from the blade, dripping to the ground with every second, like a metronome. But it was too far. Further than I could reach. Not with him still standing over me. Not with his hand still on my wrist.

I yanked away from him, pulling my arm out of his grasp. He didn’t seem too surprised, but he did seem a little hurt. Was he expecting me to let him hold me? Someone who had once tried to kill me?

As I stood, I heard footsteps. Heavy ones, but not too heavy. As they got loud enough to be right behind me, I didn’t have to look around before knowing who it was.

I spun on my heel and pushed passed Dean as he walked in. He paid no attention to me, keeping his eyes locked on his angel. “Cas,” he breathed. As I made my way out of the kitchen, finally remembering why I had even gone in there, I heard Dean cough, then say, “What are you doing here?”


	25. Waiting

Forward, back, again, again. I grooved dents into the carpet, walking back and forth over the same steps, taking the same path. My thoughts went with my feet, pacing back and forth. Why was he here? What did he want? Why couldn’t he leave me alone? Lost in my own brain, I didn’t realize Dean was back until he spoke up.

“Don’t wear a hole in that carpet,” he told me, and took a seat nearby. As my mind discerned exactly what he had said, it came to my attention that he must have been standing there for a good while. Long enough to watch me pace in a few laps, at least.

“No promises,” I said, and continued the motion. Three turns later, I stopped. “What did he want?” I asked. Before he could answer, I rapid-fired a few more questions. “Why is he even here? Is it because of me? And where is he now? Why did he want to kill me? What the hell is going on, Dean?”

With a sigh, he said, “Believe me, I wish I knew. But . . . I don’t know what to tell you, Liz.”

“Then find out.” I knew without looking in a mirror that my face was hard, my expression deadly. I spun on my heal, my ragged hair flying out to fan behind me, and I made my way to my room.

I don’t know how it had become “my room,” but it was now, that’s for sure. Sam sometimes spent the night, but only because of my nightmares. If he wasn’t there when I woke from my own screams, I wouldn’t go back to sleep. I don’t know how, but he had figured that out pretty quickly. Now, whenever I went to bed, so did he.

I tried not to sleep.

A quiet knock at the door interrupted my extremely short trip down memory lane. “Hey, Lizzie,” Garth said. “You alright?”

“Yeah, just . . .” I sighed and fell onto the bed. What could I even say? I didn’t want to bother lying to the boy, but how does someone tell a hunter that they’re terrified of an angel? I’m supposed to be a tough girl, aren’t I? Bobby’s tough little princess. Though that term no longer applied, and in so many ways. I wasn’t Bobby’s anymore. I wasn’t little, not when I was 5’ 8”. I was not, and never was, a princess. Why not break one more. I’m not exactly tough.

The bed dented, and a hand came towards my face, very slowly, as if I was a rabid dog about to get pet. I let the hand move, tracing the callouses as they came closer. I looked up at Garth as his hand became a whisper against my cheek. His thumb pressed into my cheekbone, and a second later was gone. I brought my own hand up, and felt a faint dampness.

I started laughing. I don’t know why, it just bubbled up and out. There was nothing I could do to stop it, and I don’t think I would’ve if I could’ve. It started as a gasp, and worked it’s way out. Garth chuckled with me, and tried making faces, contorting his lips and eyes into strange positions. That just made me laugh harder, which I think was the goal.

The laughter died eventually. It slowly wound its way down to nothing, until I was gasping for breath. “I’m okay,” I said, in a hushed tone, but with air being pushed between every syllable. “Yeah,” I huffed. “I’m okay.”

Garth let me sit there for a while. He was sweet, and definitely quieter than he had been on the car ride. But he wasn’t sweet. He’s a hunter. None of them are sweet, just a nuisance. Maybe I was too high on energy and laughter and sadness to tell the difference right now.

“So . . .” he said when my breath was normal. “Castiel’s here.”

I choked out another laugh. This one sounded tortured. “Yeah,” I agreed. “Castiel’s here.”

“Is that okay?” he wondered. “I mean, it didn’t seem okay. You didn’t seem okay.” He didn’t stress any syllables. To him, it just seemed like facts.

“I guess we’ll find out. Come on,” I said, grabbing his arm. I pulled him over to the door and shut him out before he could even ask where we were going.

With him out of my way, I changed my shirt, brushed my hair out, and came too close to punching a wall. I tied my hair up in a knot and walked out. I almost ran into Garth, who was still standing outside.

“What are you still doing here?” I asked.

“Waiting.” **  
**


	26. Backup

". . . the hell, Cas? Not even a warning? Couldn't give us a minute to plan this out?"

Garth and I walked into the library, listening to Dean's shouts. Rather than announcing our presence, I leaned against a wall and waited for it to pass.

"I wasn't aware it would upset you," Cas tried cautiously. I almost laughed at his own stupidity. I may not have known him as long as this angel has, but I certainly knew not to say something like that.

"No," Dean said instead. I pushed off from the wall, curious. That wasn't the reaction I expected . . . "No, Cas, I'm not upset. Just . . . You tried to kill Liz, the same girl we risked our asses to save, wouldn't explain why, then disappeared for three months. I mean . . . the least you could do is explain. If not to me, then to Liz."

"And that would be my queue," I exclaimed, finally drawing their attention to me. "Hi," I said, waving a little. I grinned as cockily as I could and said to Cas, "Liz, here. Explanations welcome. The sooner you start, the less likely I am to chop your head off." He just stood there, staring at me with confusion modelling his face. "So talk."

When he hesitated for longer than I was comfortable with, I made what might've been the worst threat I've ever made. "Castiel, if you don't tell me why the hell you tried to kill me, I will go back in that kitchen and cut your vessels goddamn head off. And then I'll rip open your stomach and dismantle your liver. You got about ten seconds." I counted down silently while I waited.

I got to seven when he began. "You're an abomination."

"Yeah, I seem to remember that bit." I clacked my jaw and wished I had been able to find some gum in this place. "Continue."

He peered at me as if seeing me for the first time. "You . . . don't know, do you?"

"Know what, exactly?"

"Everything," he answered simply. "Anything. Do you even know your past? Your history?"

"Of course I fucking do, it's my past!" I shouted. I threw myself forward, but not on top of him. Not even close enough for him to touch me.

He took a small step back. At the same time, I felt a small touch on my elbow. I shifted slightly so that I wasn't being touched anymore, and could now see that Garth was standing beside me, almost protectively.

"What happened when you were six months old?" Castiel asked me.

"What the hell does that have to do with anything?" I demanded. He just waited. I stared at him defiantly.

"Elizabeth-"

"Liz," I nearly spat. "It's Liz." He kept waiting. "Fine. My parents. Died. In. A. Fire. Happy?"

"That fire," he continued, as if I had hardly spoken, "was of demonic creation. Specifically . . . the demon Azazel."

"Your point?"

"At the time, he had been building an army. In fact, he had just finished creating his army. But he needed a failsafe. A . . . backup, in case things went wrong."

"In case . . . what went wrong?"

"Yellow eyes," Dean cut in, "was giving these kids demon blood to give them . . . psychic abilities. Then he had them kill each other to see which one was strongest."

I rolled my eyes and turned to Sam, who had walked in when I had started shouting. "And let me guess," I said as cheerily as I could. He nodded.

"I won," he said with a half-hearted shrug. "I was the last one left standing."

"So what was this for, again? This . . . whatever the heck it is?"

Sam sighed. "Azazel needed an army. He wanted me to lead that army. Against . . . humanity."

I nodded. "Right," I said with another nod. "Of course. Because who doesn't want to kill every human on Earth?" I sighed and muttered under my breath about the stupidity of demons.

"But Azazel thought that if his leader died before he could build his army against humans," Cas continued, "he needed a backup. It wasn't perfect, he knew, but . . ."

"What, am I the backup?" I joked. He smiled sadly. Why would he be smiling? This certainly wasn't a time for . . . "Shit." I nodded again, and repeated myself. "Shit."

Castiel started to say something, then Dean, then Sam. Even Garth was trying to console me. But I didn't hear any of it. I didn't hear anything, just murmurs and whispers. The world sloshed like an upturned wave in front of me. I backed away from it, as if it was going to soak my bones. Maybe it was. I didn't realize I was still backing up until I tripped on the edge of a carpet. Garth - so much sweeter than he had any right to be - caught me in my fall. "Thank you," I whispered. I tried to say it again louder, but my mouth wouldn't move. I leaned back against him and passed into unconsciousness.

**Author's Note:**

> Find the original posting of this work here (before I had an AO3 I posted it here, and am more likely to upload there than here so check it out if you like this) :
> 
> http://www.supernaturalfanfiction.com/Story/14123/Hells-Other-Bitch/


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